


Integrity Compromised

by IgnorantArmies



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, ManDadlorian, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Sickfic, Slow Burn, The very slowest of burns, Whump, a little fluff, as a treat, oops I started a new fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 80,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22531195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IgnorantArmies/pseuds/IgnorantArmies
Summary: Set after the events of Chapter 8, Din discovers his armour isn't working quite the way it should do. In fact, it's becoming a dangerous and inconvenient pain in the ass. But the Armourer is nowhere to be found and he must seek out a specialist engineer to help him fix it...It was Greef who recommended her. Of course he ‘knew a guy’. Or woman, in this case.“An engineer of extraordinary talent,” Greef had said over the holo-com. And she would have to be, if she was going to be able to handle Mandalorian armour. Din would much rather have sought out the Armourer, of course, but there had been no trace of her – or any of the covert – since Navarro, and he was starting to get desperate. A Mandalorian without functioning armour was nothing at all.
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV) & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 198
Kudos: 336





	1. The Problem

It was Greef who recommended her. Of course he ‘knew a guy’. Or woman, in this case.

“An engineer of extraordinary talent,” Greef had said over the holo-com. And she would have to be, if she was going to be able to handle Mandalorian armour. Din would much rather have sought out the Armourer, of course, but there had been no trace of her – or any of the covert – since Nevarro, and he was starting to get desperate. A Mandalorian without functioning armour was nothing at all. 

The care and maintenance of his armour was a never-ending task - especially in his line of work. Every battle, every bounty, every beating required careful repair and retuning afterwards. Especially the last one. Just like every warrior in his clan, he had been painstakingly trained to keep the inner workings of his Beskar in decent condition, and he was a capable enough engineer. He had to be. Bounty hunting was a solitary pursuit, and the creed was strict about self-sufficiency. _If a warrior cannot mend his own armour, he lives at the mercy of others._ But there were certain things he couldn’t do on his own; not without the proper tools or a forge or the guiding expertise of the Armourer. His chest piece had been all but inoperable after his scuffle with the mudhorn, and it was lucky – or perhaps a kind of bittersweet fate – that he’d been able to replace it with the blood money he’d received for bringing in the child.

But this was more than just replacing plating and panels. There was something seriously wrong with his central electrical system. Something had been off ever since he’d been caught in the E-web explosion. Something skewed inside his helmet, sending the wrong messages – or not sending them at all – zapping him with electrical shocks and locking up without warning. Once, his vision had cut out completely, right in the middle of a complex landing manoeuvre. Another time, the controls on his forearm went haywire and deployed the whistling birds without warning. Luckily he’d been planetside and not in the cockpit of the Razor Crest, otherwise he and the child would be floating through space in the burnt out hulk of his ship right now.

And worst of all, there was the time the door to his bunk wouldn’t open. With the child inside it.

Almost everything on the ship was connected to his armour’s controls, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t override it. The little metal cubicle remained stubbornly shut; the child trapped within. Din could hear the creature's forlorn little mews rising to increasingly distressed squeals as he hammered at the door and punched every combination of buttons he could think of to activate the release. Eventually, it came down to brute strength and he managed to lever the door up with a prybar, just enough to reach an arm through. The child stood at the back of the bunk, ears flat back against its head with fear - the echoing clangs of the Mandalorian's attempts to get in must have been deafening from inside. But Din didn't have time to explain - he could feel the door's hydraulics scraping at his Beskar as he braced the gap with his shoulder, his muscles screaming with the strain. It wouldn't hold much longer. He stretched as far as his precarious position would allow and scooped up the baby, holding it tightly to his chest as he quickly turned and pulled away. The door slid shut with a horrible snap and Din slid down the wall with the child in his lap, slumping in a sweaty, shivering heap on the floor.

“You’re okay…” he said in a hushed voice – more to comfort himself than the baby, who hadn’t suffered anything more than a few minutes of confusion - as he checked the child over with shaky hands. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Those wide black eyes stared up at him with uncertainty and the child let out an inquisitive chirp. Din interpreted the sound with a layer of self-imposed guilt, as if the creature was asking: _Why wouldn't you let me out?_

“It got stuck, that’s all,” he explained, trying to quell the adrenaline still surging through him, making his voice waver. “I won’t let it happen again.” 

But he knew he couldn't promise that. Not with the shape his armour was in. He had to get it fixed.

Back in the pilot seat, with the child safely stowed beside him, he ran one last scan on his ship's systems for a sign of the Armourer, but any optimism he'd once held had been replaced with an empty sense of dread. And, as he watched the results come up blank once again, he was forced to admit he would have to seek help elsewhere.

Before something even worse happened.

_~ ~ ~ ooh woo ooh woooo ~ ~ ~ ooh woo ooh woooo ~ ~ ~_

“They call her Nanse,” Greef said, setting down a bounty puck on the table between them. “She’s your best bet at specialist repair on the outer rim.”

The child tried to clamber up out of the booth to get to the shiny disc and Din gently pulled him back into his lap with a sigh. He didn’t like anything about this: being back on Nevarro, dealing with Greef, trusting some stranger with something as sacred and intimate as his armour... The whole thing made him intensely uncomfortable. And irritable.

He took a centering breath, forcing himself to stay calm and not let his frustrations take over. _The stillness of the mountain. The clarity of the lake. Be aware of your surroundings but rooted in yourself._ He could feel the warmth of the child in his arms. His own heartbeat slowing and steadying as he concentrated on his breathing. The reassuring press of his armour, fitted to every curve of his body as if it were a part of him. It _was_ a part of him.

His surroundings were just as familiar, albeit not quite as welcome. The Nevarro cantina had been hastily rebuilt, patched with scrap and various distinctly Imperial-looking materials that must have been scavenged from the skirmish with Moff Gideon and his attack squad. The blackened scars of the flame trooper’s work still covered the walls and Din’s eyes kept straying to the spot on the floor where he’d lain bleeding, fighting for every breath, convinced he was going to die. He still dreamed of the fire; of the deafening, blinding, skull shattering impact. Paralysed with pain, watching the world narrow to a point...

The puck flickered to life and he dragged his gaze back to the table, peering at the luminous figure that emerged from the metal disc. She was humanoid, with a faint blue tint to her skin and an almost metallic sheen to her hair, which was cut short and functional. Delicate (and expensive-looking) spectacles covered her eyes - tinted dark and fitted with laser-precision zoom lenses. She looked more like a clerk than an engineer, dressed in a neat waistcoat and shirtsleeves instead of the flight suit and tool belt he was expecting. Then again, he supposed she dealt with more intricate work than your standard hanger mech.

“Nanse,” he repeated, monotone, locking the image and its chaincode into his memory – no longer able to rely on his helmet’s data banks to do it for him. Though Greef couldn’t see it, Din’s brow furrowed into a frown as he deactivated the puck and turned it over in his gloved fingers. “She's got a bounty on her head?”

Greef grimaced, as though he’d been hoping the Mandalorian wouldn’t ask about that. “She’s got… a few,” he said slowly. “And not all of them Guild. So I’d suggest you get to her first.”

“Great.” Din closed his eyes briefly. Of course it couldn’t be simple. He decided he didn’t even want to know why she was wanted, after all. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t hunting her down for the bounty.

“And you’ve heard nothing from the Armourer?” he tried, one final hopeful time, knowing in his guts what the answer would be before Greef even answered.

Greef shook his head, managing to at least look a little apologetic. “Nothing. Not since the sewers. I’m sorry, Mando.”

The Mandalorian felt a flare of anger and sorrow rising from his stomach as he remembered the last time he’d been here. The heap of broken, bloody armour that had once been his covert. His family. He forced the feelings back down again. _Stay in control of your emotions._ _Bad decisions come from impulsive reactions._

He let out a slow breath. Let logic preside. He would find her again. The Armourer was simply staying under the radar until the covert was settled somewhere new; until she’d tracked down whoever else had managed to escape the Imperial raid. And then she would send for him. He just had to be patient. This was the way.

Still, a wheedling worry made its way through his enforced calm. The creed didn’t explicitly forbid outsiders to interfere with Mandalorian armour, but it certainly didn’t encourage it. Their technology was unique and closely guarded, but as their numbers dwindled, sometimes a warrior had no other option than to seek help from outside their covert. He hoped the Armourer would understand. He hoped this Nanse was to be trusted – or could at least be intimidated or bribed into compliance. He had no other choice but to try.

While he'd been distracted by his thoughts, the child had managed to pry the puck from his hands and was chewing on it enthusiastically. It protested with a series of indignant meeps when Din took it back again. He checked the chaincode once more to make sure he had memorised it. He would have to get used to not being able to trust his own armour. His own skin.

“Last seen on R’Ossel Vorna,” he muttered, his voice modulator betraying an edge of disapproval. The child gave a little chirrup, still sulking about losing its toy. Din looked down at the little green head thoughtfully. “Must be a hundred bounties to choose from in that dirthole city.” 

Greef grinned, spreading his arms wide. “Well, if you want to take on a few more while you’re there…?”

Din sighed again. R’Ossel Vorna was the last place he wanted to take the child – not that anywhere was exactly safe right now – a smog-choked, mob-ruled settlement on an abandoned industrial moon. But he didn’t have many other options. He certainly wasn’t about to leave the child here with Greef. Still, he could do with some back up. Or a babysitter.

“Where’s Cara?” he asked, surprised he hadn’t seen her yet. The one good reason for coming back to Nevarro.

“Tracking down some old war buddies,” Greef said with a shrug, “Now her chaincode issues have been straightened out she thought she’d see if she could make contact with the Republic again.”

Din remained impassive but inside his helmet his scowl deepened. She hadn’t told him of her plans, but then, why should she? She was free to do whatever she wanted now she was no longer an outlaw; no longer on the run. He wondered what that might be like and found himself filled with a distasteful kind of envy. He knew should be pleased for Cara, but hearing about her freedom only added an extra edge to the knowledge that his covert was gone and he had nowhere to go; no people to call his own.

Greef seemed to understand something of his silence and leaned in, dropping his voice a tone or two. “I'm no Republican, but it could be good to have some extra support if the Empire come looking for the ‘asset’ again…?”

Din gave the tiniest of nods, but he didn’t trust the New Republic any more than he trusted the Imps. And he certainly didn’t like the idea of them knowing about the child. He hoped Cara knew him well enough to keep that information to herself. He instinctively pulled the little creature closer into his chest and it clinked the mythosaur pendant against his pauldron with a happy little cooing noise, seemingly having forgiven him for taking away the puck.

He was about to remind Greef to keep his mouth shut about ‘the asset’ while he was gone, but just at that moment his helmet decided to send an errant buzzing pulse through his temples. Both the child and Greef stared at him as he twitched and winced, a shower of sparks popping out from the back of his cuirass.

He gritted his teeth against the pain and stood suddenly, swaying just a little, trying to maintain a modicum of dignity and pretend that his armour hadn’t just short circuited in public. The child squealed in surprise but didn't seem to have been affected by the electrical current. 

“You really oughta get that looked at…” Greef said with a drawling kind of concern.

“That’s the plan,” Din growled through his clenched jaw. He had a strong suspicion the Guild agent was enjoying his discomfort.

“Anything else I should know about this Nanse?” _Before I put my life in her hands_ , he added silently.

Greef appeared to think it over for a second, then smiled widely. “Well, she’s about as paranoid as you are. The two of you should get on wonderfully.”

Din didn’t even bother to reply. He turned abruptly and left – the child wriggling in his arms and a stream of unspoken curses streaming through his head – before his frustration got the better of him. Or before his armour decided to explode entirely.

Back in the Razor Crest, he settled the child in its little chair and programmed a route to R’Ossel Vorna, flinching nervously every time he had to use his armour controls.

It was a strange feeling to be in a rush to remove his armour. As if he could no longer trust it. As if he was missing a part of himself, somehow. 

This Nanse better be worth the trouble. And she’d better be able to fix him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, this came entirely from a random daydream I had this morning and I have not planned out the rest of the story at all, but I'm willing to have a go at turning it into some sort of coherent narrative. All I know is that I'm not going to make things simple for our favourite ManDADlorian and there will be plenty of Baby Yoda feels, some hurt/comfort, and probably a hefty dose of PTSD and angst because HAVE YOU READ ANY OF MY OTHER FICS THIS IS WHAT I DO. I'm sorry. I'm not sorry. There might even be some gentle shipping with my random OC who has suddenly and inexplicably appeared out of literal nowhere (I have never written an OC in my life). Who knows? Feed me with kudos and comments and you might find out... 
> 
> A few more general notes: 
> 
> 1\. I hope you got the musical reference in the scene break, otherwise I look slightly insane  
> 2\. Everything I know about Mandalorian lore came from Wookiepedia, please don't @ me


	2. The Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din struggles with his armour, and his doubts...

He was used to places like this. The scum of the underworld, so far beneath the boot of civilisation that even the Empire didn’t bother with it. The kind of place where bounties went to disappear, safe in the knowledge that most hunters wouldn’t risk venturing anywhere near unless they were stupid, desperate, or extremely well paid.

Din was at least one of those things. But he certainly wasn’t getting any money out of this.

Every instinct in him jangled with alarm bells as he brought the Razor Crest down towards the landing pads that spread out above the city like a fan. Either the child agreed with him or was picking up on his anxiousness because it was making a low, nervous warbling noise, peeking over the edge of its carrier with wide eyes. He reached out and laid a gloved hand between its ears. He wanted to say something reassuring – to say everything would be all right – but words had never come easy to him. At least, not the kind of empty platitudes that fill silences. He couldn’t promise the child anything; least of all safety on R’Ossel Vorna. To tell the truth, the thought of coming here was slowly filling his stomach with dread.

He’d long ago made peace with his own mortality, raised by the creed to focus only on the immediate moment and not question what has been or what might be; to control his emotions and set aside anything that did not serve his purpose.

This was the way. He knew that. But lately he’d found himself faltering.

Doubting.

 _Fearing_.

Before the child, he’d only ever had to worry about his own safety, but now, the usual threats and dangers were amplified a thousandfold. A constant stream of hypotheticals that all ended with the child being taken; the child being hurt; the child being killed. The what ifs kept him on edge. Kept him from sleeping. And when he _did_ sleep, his dreams were full of fire...

He had almost failed the child before. Back on Nevarro. Lying on the floor of that cantina, blood soaking the back of his head, dripping down his neck... Entrusting the creature to a _droid_ of all things. And the flames, billowing towards them – he could still feel the fierceness of that heat, stealing all the moisture out of the air. He had failed, and it was the child who had saved him.

He couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes. The child was no longer just a child. It was a foundling. His foundling. They were a clan of two now, and he would defend the child to his last breath – but that was exactly the problem. It wasn’t that he questioned his own willingness to give his life for the cause – what bothered him was knowing that it wouldn’t be enough. He had to stay alive if he was to truly protect the kid. He had to be better. Stronger. Smarter. Quicker.

Back on Nevarro, he had truly believed he was going to die, but his last thoughts – his only thoughts – had been of the child. And a lifetime of meditation on the impartiality of death suddenly felt lacking. His life, a tiny dot in the universe, suddenly _mattered_.

And he was afraid.

He wished he could ask the Armourer what to do. She would know. She always knew. She’d tell him something about how the unknown is a gift. That uncertainty is just the mind’s frustration at not being able to control the future. That he ought not to dwell on what _might_ come to pass and concentrate on what lay directly before him. One foot in front of the other. Follow the way. _Trust_ the way.

He closed his eyes for a moment as the landing gear locked onto the docking platform with a dull thunk. The sound resounded in his helmet with echoey feedback. _The way_ had brought him here. All he could do was accept it, and try not to get them both killed.

The child waggled its ears beneath his palm with a questioning little meep and he turned to face it. “This is a bad idea, right?”

The creature’s only answer was to try to climb out of the chair, its blunt little claws clinging onto Din’s wrist, its feet dangling in mid-air. He sighed, wrapping his other arm around its middle and carefully detaching the child’s hands from the control panel on his forearm. He was wary enough of his armour at the moment without the kid accidentally pressing any buttons.

He tucked the child under his arm and climbed one-handed down the ladder to the cargo bay – a well-practised manoeuvre by now. He stood there for a moment, listening to the ticks and clanks of cooling metal as the ship settled in the new atmosphere. 

He didn’t want to leave the child alone in the ship, but he also didn’t want to risk taking it with him into the city. He’d be at a disadvantage with the foundling strapped to him – a vulnerability that any enemy would try to exploit, even without knowing the child’s importance. He doubted the Imperial bounties would have reached this far out yet, but he couldn’t take that chance.

Then again, leaving the child by itself, unprotected… Wasn’t that even riskier? Every single time he’d let the little womp rat out of his sight, something bad had happened. That assassin on Sorgan. That cocky wannabe bounty hunter on Tatooine. That creepy insect-looking droid pilot on the prison ship. Those Stormtroopers, gunning down Kuill… He swallowed hard, shaking the memories out of his head. They weren’t helping. But the decision remained impossible: the child wasn’t safe with him, or without him, it seemed.

The foundling wriggled in the crook of his arm, trying to get down, and he let it toddle about the cargo bay for a minute while he tried to decide what to do.

In the end, his suit made the choice for him. Another electric shock, shooting all the way up from his wrist to his shoulder. He’d sensed it was coming, a split second before it hit – a subtle shift in the circuitry that left a metallic taste in his mouth – but there was nothing he could do to prevent it happening.

And this one _hurt_.

Sparks leapt out of his wrist panel and lightning stabbed deep into his bones, clenching his hand into a fist. He jolted backwards with a grunt of pain and stumbled against the wall, breathing in short, sharp gasps.

The child startled at the noise and peered up at him, its ears drooping low with sympathy. Din held up his uninjured hand to stop him coming any closer, his stomach lurching as he considered what might have happened if he’d still been holding the baby in his arms when his armour had malfunctioned. He could cope with the shocks well enough – they weren’t exactly pleasant but he’d been trained to deal with greater pains – but he’d never forgive himself for accidentally electrocuting the child.

The creature cooed, low and concerned, reaching one tiny hand up towards him.

“I’m fine,” Din said quickly, trying to shake the numbness out of his arm, a bizarre feeling of betrayal running through him. His armour was the one thing he could always rely on, and now it was attacking him. A thin frequency, almost too high to hear, buzzed inside his helmet like tinnitus. He let out a long, very tired breath, letting his head fall back against the wall. It was going to be a testing day. But then, every day had been testing since he’d found his fate tangled up with the child’s.

The foundling had edged its way over and stood clutching his left boot but he didn’t pick it up. Didn’t dare to, until the remnants of the aftershocks subsided. The child’s wrinkled brow furrowed.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he repeated. “Just… gotta get this fixed.”

The sooner the better.

He glanced around the ship, trying to figure out where would be safest to put the kid. He couldn’t leave him in the cockpit, knowing all too well his habit of tinkering with controls and switches. He didn’t want to just leave him roaming free around the cargo bay either, which just left his bunk – a modest, compact cell comprising not much more than a bedroll and a few storage units. He eyed the cubicle distrustfully - the controls seemed to be behaving for now, but he still hadn’t quite gotten over the kid getting stuck in there. It would have to do. There was only so much chaos the kid could wreak in the tiny space, and hopefully he would just curl up and nap until he got back.

He nudged the child as gently as he could with his foot and gestured for him to follow as he headed over to his bunk. “C’mon, womp rat.”

The child dutifully waddled after him, humming a little tuneless song, and Din waited patiently as the creature clambered up onto the bedroll to sit beside him, unable to stop a smile from creeping across his lips. There was something calming about the child’s slow, deliberate movements – as if there was all the time in the world and no reason to worry about anything. He just wished that were true.

The child turned its eyes on him and it was as if it could sense his worry. It blinked, cocked its head, and gave a little rising chirp – patting at the vambrace that had misfired.

He nodded. “Yes. It’s broken.”

The child shuffled closer, squinting its eyes with a seriousness that would have been amusing if he didn’t know the astonishing powers it was capable of. It reached out one hand to the control panel and let out a grunt of effort and frustration when Din pulled away.

“No. You can’t mend this one. And neither can I. I have to find someone else to fix it.”

He felt a pang of uncertainty saying it out loud. The thought of letting a stranger tinker with his Beskar made his veins run cold. The child seemed to agree – or perhaps it was just put out that he wouldn’t let it try. It stomped in a little sulky circle around the cot. Din suppressed an amused smile.

“Time to sleep, little one,” the Mandalorian said softly, taking a blanket and creating a little nest around the foundling, who immediately climbed out and tried to crawl into his lap.

“You have to stay here,” he said, more firmly this time, placing the child back into the blanket. Another chirp. Another attempted escape.

“I’ll be back soon, I promise,” Din sighed, lifting the child up to his eyeline and attempting a stern glare, “It’s not safe for you out there.”

The child made a mournful little noise, but this time when Din settled him into the blanket he stayed there, chewing on the mythosaur pendant around his neck. It still felt strange to see the emblem in the child’s hands. Strange not to feel the weight of it pressed against his chest beneath his Beskar. Strange, but somehow… right. It was the mark of a foundling; the same one he’d been given by his own _buir_ when he’d been accepted as part of the clan – a solemn, silent, wide-eyed boy, hollowed out by the death of his parents. The death of everyone he’d ever known. His _buir_ had placed the pendant over his head with such reverence he’d forgotten to breathe for a moment – all he could do was close his fist around the cold metal until the mythosaur’s tusks bit into his palm, trying desperately not to let his tears show.

“You are safe now,” his _buir_ had said, one heavy hand resting on the boy’s shoulder. “ _The way_ has brought you to Mand’alore. And if you wish to learn, I will teach you.”

There was never a universe where he would have said no. He looked up at his _buir_ ’s helmet and saw his own reflection – a lost, scared little boy – and wanted nothing more than to be the warrior that stood before him. To not be afraid. To fight, not run. To protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. To trust that _the way_ had a plan for him. And he had never doubted it since.

But still, sometimes, in his nightmares, when his mind replayed that last agonised escape, over and over again, there were times when his parents didn’t die. In these dreams, he is still rescued by the warrior, but as he clings to his _buir_ ’s Beskar, flying higher and higher over the desolate waste of the burning city, he can see the frantic waving of two figures far below. He tries to call out to them, to reach back for his mother and father, stranded there, watching their son be taken, but no one can hear him. He fights against his _buir_ , thrashing in his sleep, screaming silently against the iron grip holding him firm – and sometimes the warrior lets him go and he’s falling, slow and torturous, waiting for the impact…

He knew it served no purpose to feel guilty. It was just a dream. His parents were long gone and the path he’d followed was the right one. The only one. He would always trust in _the way_ but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be cruel and unforgiving, too.

He looked down at the child (who had somehow managed to crawl back into his lap while he wasn’t paying attention) and wondered if its parents were still out there somewhere. If it had been stolen from them. Or if it had watched them die. How long it had been shut away in that little transport pod on Arvala-7. Who had brought it there, and why. What that doctor had done to it on Nevarro. Why so many seemed to want to hurt it.

He curled an arm around the creature and it nestled against him with a soft, cooing sigh, its eyes fluttering shut as it finally succumbed to drowsiness. He couldn’t bring himself to move the child, not until long after its breathing slowed to the steady pattern of sleep, and even then he took his time, settling it gently into the nest of blankets with the same care and precision he gave his Beskar.

“You are safe now,” he whispered – so quietly his modulator almost didn’t pick it up. “ _The way_ has brought you to me and I will keep you from harm.”

The child stirred in its sleep but did not wake. He patted it one last time, tucking the mythosaur pendant back into its robes before he turned to leave. Perhaps the emblem would serve as a form of protection while he was gone.

He was going to need all the help he could get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'd meant to get Din into the city by now but it seems he had other ideas. A little backstory, a little introspection, a little fluff, a little angst. 
> 
> Next chapter will be straight into R'ossel Vorna and all the lovely dangers that await there (we might even meet Nanse, who knows...)


	3. The City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din ventures into the depths of R'Ossel Vorna and finds a whole HEAP of trouble...

He was sweating even before he stepped down into the humid smoke of the city. R’Ossel Vorna was a dead moon, long since harvested of its resources – so heavily mined and shored up with scaffolding that it was probably more manmade than natural at this point – its questionable and mostly illegal industry fuelled by the stinking, smog-puking tar pits that recycled endlessly at its core. It should have been decommissioned and destroyed long ago but there had been some workers’ rebellion, a hundred cycles ago, and the city had been taken over by squatters, a hundred thousand of them, stretching across the tiny moon in increasingly precarious makeshift shanty dwellings – all steel and iron and soot-blackened permaconcrete. It was a brutal place – hot and dark and unforgiving – and, according to his tracking fob, the Mandalorian was headed right into the heart of it.

The buzzing in his helmet was already beginning to give him a headache, and his shoulder throbbed where the electrical charge had burned right the way through to the skin. For a tiny, fleeting moment, back on the ship, he had considered taking off his body plating and slipping into the city cloaked, with only his helmet to protect him… But it was only fleeting. It was impossible. His creed – and perhaps his pride – wouldn’t allow it. Allowing himself to be so vulnerable would be far worse than being stuck in a faulty suit, and went against the very first tenet of his code. Wearing his armour, no matter what state it was in, was what made him a Mandalorian. He could cope with the shocks, the burns, the misfires and malfunctions – he just needed to find this engineer and get back to the ship before anything worse happened.

The city was a cramped labyrinth of wrong turns and alleyways, populated by the type of folk any sensible person would rather not meet in the dark. He knew he stood out in his Beskar – could feel the eyes on him the moment he’d set foot in the city – and his senses were set to a hair trigger as he ventured deeper into the maze. Beneath the spread of landing pads above, the streets splintered into a spiderweb of narrow paths and staircases that twisted and switched back on themselves, never taking him in the direction he wanted to go. He had to rely on the fob more than any instinctual sense of direction, silently praying that his helmet would stay connected to the homing beacon on the Razor Crest for his journey back. He’d never quite realised quite how much he depended on his armour until its integrity had been compromised so fundamentally. And it was getting worse.

As if it was listening to his thoughts, his helmet took that precise opportunity to send a teeth-shattering screech of feedback through his head, stopping him dead in his tracks. A few passing citizens gave him a curious second glance as he stood there in the middle of the street like a statue, shoulders hunched, head ducked, clenching his jaw so hard he could hear his molars grinding. He shook his head to get rid of the after-echos rattling around his skull and felt a fresh layer of sweat peel off his skin. This was not the time for another malfunction. He was enough of a target here without being at a disadvantage, and he was pretty sure he was already being followed...

Someone shoved his shoulder as they barged past and he took the hint, picking up the pace once more. He clutched the tracking fob tight in his fist to keep himself focused; to keep moving; to remind him of why he was here. He could feel the tell-tale prickle of another electrical surge creeping through the plates of his armour and tried not to cringe with anticipation. _Not now. Not here._

He made two quick right turns and ducked into the shadows of a burnt-out storage cubicle just before the misfire sparked – from both wrist braces this time - and he almost dropped the fob as the lightning jarred through his muscles, temporarily losing all feeling in his hands. He fought to control his breathing as the piercing pain slowly passed, pulling himself deeper into the darkness of the cubicle and watching with a dull kind of satisfaction as two hooded figures passed him by. He’d spotted them a few times already since he’d left the Razor Crest – always in his periphery, seemingly going about their business but clearly keeping eyes on him. Bounty hunters, perhaps. Or members of one of the city’s many squabbling, murderous gangs. Or maybe just a couple of thieves who fancied their chances at taking home a full set of Beskar. It didn’t much matter. He would avoid them if possible, and deal with them if it came to that. He had more important things to do right now.

He clipped the fob back onto his belt for safekeeping and took the opposite direction to his stalkers, taking the opportunity to try to lose them. He kept to the busier streets, trying to hide within the crowd, trying to ignore the lingering aches and shooting pains that spread through his muscles. He blinked down at the fob at regular intervals but took as random a route as possible, doubling back whenever he could to confuse any unseen followers. It was slow progress, but as he descended another level down into the underbelly of the city, he was pretty sure he’d shaken them off. He was close to his own quarry now, too – she had to be somewhere in the market quarter that made up the central core of the city – and he quickened his steps, threading his way through the crowded, claustrophobic streets. The deeper he went, the hotter it became. Steam vents exhaled vast plumes of dirty smog from underground and the air was close and clammy, even through his helmet's filters. He added R'Ossel Vorna to the list of places he never, ever wanted to return to.

The whining, hissing feedback of his helmet was building once more; a pressure in his head that brought black spots creeping into his vision. It spiked and he stumbled a little, reaching out to steady himself on a street vendor’s awning. The shopkeeper snarled at him, snapping something in a language he didn’t understand, and he muttered an apology, pushing himself onward, dizzy with the crackling, whistling noise in his head.

The crowd suddenly seemed tighter than before, and he was jostled from all directions as he struggled to walk in a straight line. He could feel the misfire coming like a wave, all too aware of its inexorable approach in the tingling of his fingertips. He needed to get off the street. Out of the market. Out of sight. He forced himself to move, to turn the corner into a side-alley where he leant heavily against the wall, fumbling desperately with the controls on his wrist, trying to deactivate whatever was causing the issue. But there was no stopping it; the noise ramped up to a shattering, deafening pitch and he clawed at the side of his helmet with one hand, feeling like his eardrums were about to burst. A surge of energy pulsed across his chestplate and he curled in on himself as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. For a moment, all he could hear was the ringing in his ears and the rough hoarseness of his breath echoing back through his modulator.

And then: 

“Problem, Mando?” said a gruff, amused voice to his right, and he managed to turn just in time to see a dark figure slashing towards his throat with a curved knife.

He ducked the strike, but only barely, and the blade sparked against the wall behind him. And suddenly the noise in his helmet didn’t matter – his ears were full of the pounding of his own heart and the rushing of his own blood, and he was moving on autopilot now, barrelling into his attacker before he had the chance to try again.

The alley was narrow and the two of them slammed into the opposite wall almost immediately. Din heard the air leave his attacker’s lungs with a whoosh and grabbed hold of the arm that was wielding the knife, twisting the man’s wrist until his fist spasmed open and the blade fell to the ground with a clatter.

And that might have been the end of it, if there hadn’t been another figure, waiting in the shadows.

A wire looped over the Mandalorian’s head from behind, cinching tight around his neck with a zipping sound. He could feel the fine metal garrotte cutting through his cowl and into his flesh, drawing blood, closing off his windpipe with every passing second as strong hands twisted behind his neck. The white noise in his head was deafening, but he couldn’t tell if it was still his helmet malfunctioning or his oxygen-starved brain screaming for help. He reached over his shoulders for the unseen assailant but his hands couldn’t get a solid grip. His throat burned and his head reeled and the lack of air was making him slow and clumsy...

The first attacker had retrieved his knife and was straightening up, grinning with a mouthful of jagged teeth at the struggling Mandalorian. Din struggled harder, jerking against his captor. Even Beskar would be no use in such close quarters; there were plenty of gaps in his armour for a blade to slip through and he was an open target. The wire pulled tighter and he choked, tasting blood as his vision began to draw in, dark and foggy, fading in and out of focus.

 _Lying on the floor of the cantina in Nevarro, fire all around…_

_The child, looking up at him, dark eyes shining…_

_The armourer, bringing a hammer down onto the forge, sparks flying…_

_His father, eyes full of tears. His mother, mouthing ‘I love you’. A door closing. An explosion. And then silence…_

Time slowed, temporarily, as a sliver of rage wound itself through him. This was not how it ended. This was not a noble death - in some backstreet alley on some dirthole moon at the hands of some jumped up thugs. He had to get back to the child. He had to live. He had to keep fighting. And he was not about to go out like this.

He shifted his weight, no longer trying to pull against the wire around his neck, and pushed backwards instead, until the attacker behind him hit the wall. It did little to dislodge the man’s grip, but it gave Din the leverage to twist himself sideways, ducking his head down and around, simultaneously forcing the strangler off balance and narrowly avoiding a knife-strike to the guts as the other lunged forwards. The pressure on his throat lifted for a brief, beautiful moment, and he managed to haul in one gasping, painful breath before the strangler regained his grip. But the Mandalorian was still moving, turning, until he was facing the one holding the garrotte, bringing the full force of a Beskar head butt down onto the bridge of the man’s nose. There was a splatter of blood, a horribly wet crunching noise, and the wire slackened as his attacker went down in a crumpled heap.

Din staggered on leaden feet, his body attempting to both cough and draw in desperate gulps of air at the same time, but he didn't get a chance to do either. The first attacker took his chance and the knife sliced down towards him once again. His reactions were sluggish and he barely had time to throw up an arm in deflection - the blade glanced off his vambrace but cut into his forearm, just above the elbow. He barely felt it. His blaster was already in his right hand and he fired from the hip, sending the Vornian flying backwards in a spray of laser particles.

There was a reverent kind of stillness for a second, as the adrenaline soared through his veins, and he slowly and methodically turned his blaster on the thug with the broken nose, ready to finish it, but something sharp thudded into his shoulder from behind and stopped him short. Before he had time to turn, another projectile clattered off his pauldron with a resounding clang and a small, triangular throwing knife landed in the dust at his feet. He span round and barely managed to bat away another blade, headed right for his throat this time. The man he’d just shot was back on his feet, seemingly unscathed – a curl of blaster smoke still rising from what Din could now see was a bulky flak vest – with another two throwing knives ready in his hands. 

Din didn’t have time to fire again, or even curse. All he could do was deflect the blades and try to keep his footing as the guy with the broken nose took the opportunity to shove past him and down the alley. By the time he straightened up again, his two assailants were gone – back into the busy streets, melting away into the steady stream of denizens who were so used to looking the other way they didn’t even react to the sound of blaster fire besides quickening their step a little.

He cursed now, low and gravelly, and then cursed again at how much using his voice hurt. He tore the wire from around his throat and tossed it to the ground. Swallowed gingerly. Even breathing was painful. He reached behind his shoulder and pulled out the triangular blade with a ragged grunt of pain. The cut on his arm had begun to throb, too, and he could feel the warm seep of blood soaking his sleeve, but neither wound was deep and he didn’t have time to take care of them right now. He was more concerned about how quickly this place had tried to murder him, and he was suddenly very glad he hadn’t taken the child into the city.

He made a brief, tentative check of his armour and realised that the grating sound in his helmet had finally eased off. It still buzzed and ticked from time to time, but as the adrenaline faded he found he could think clearly again and the world gradually came back into focus.

He leaned heavily against the wall of the alley as he regained his breath, furious at himself for missing the signs; for allowing himself to get distracted. Compromised. He forced himself to refocus. To ignore the pain threatening to overwhelm his senses. To stop his anger and frustration from blinding him completely. It irked him that his attackers had got away, but there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t here for them – whoever they were. He was here for Nanse. And he was close.

He pushed himself up and out of the alleyway, and the fob blinked faster as he made his way to a broad market square packed with stalls and stores - food and sundries, fuel and parts, droids and machinery, moneylenders and pawnshops, gambling dens and bars – all walks of life side by side, squashed up together. No one gave him a second glance in amongst all the noise and bustling business, and though he attempted to scan the crowd for a sign of his fleeing assailants he quickly realised it was a futile exercise. This was a place where you came to get lost. 

He wondered - not for the first time - about what kind person this Nanse might be, to have a handful of bounties on her head and choose to settle down somewhere like this. Not someone he'd be inclined to trust, but then, in his experience, there were very few people worthy of trust in the whole damn galaxy. But maybe he didn't have to trust her. He just had to strike a deal. 

He took a deep breath and forged into the market. There was a loose kind of order to the chaos – separate quarters for separate trades, loosely grouped together, and he made a beeline for the engineering section. He passed a series of food carts, each with their own blend of spices and smells; dodged through a minefield of bartering auctioneers selling off second-hand droids; and received silent glares from two enormous bouncers standing outside a weapons store – as if they were almost daring him to give them a reason to do their job.

He ignored the mild lightheadedness of blood loss and kept moving forward, scoping out each area of the vast spread of commerce, gradually making his way towards where the fob and his instincts were pointing him. He was in the engineering quarter now and the sounds of machinery came from all around – hangars clanked with maintenance droids, while smaller shops displayed an array of illegal-looking armoury, modifications, and security equipment. But none of them contained the figure he’d seen illuminated in the bounty puck.

He’d almost hit the end of a dead-end street when the fob reached critical pitch – its little red light flashing so fast it had become almost steady. He turned a full circle but there was only a blank wall ahead of him and an empty hangar behind. He gave a grating sigh. His injuries were beginning to weigh down on him. His head was pounding and his throat was raw and his left arm was beginning to go numb – he could feel the blood trickling down into his glove, hot and sticky. Perhaps the cut had been deeper than he’d thought. The buzzing in his helmet had returned, too, gradually driving him crazy as he counted down the minutes until the next inevitable electric shock…

He shook his head to clear the fuzz out of his vision and was about to check the fob again when something caught his eye on the corner of the next street – an ornate clock, mounted high on the wall, made up of a thousand tiny cogs and pieces, all intricately connected and spinning in a mesmerising pattern. It seemed utterly out of place in this exhaust pipe of a city - something so delicate, so ornate - that for a moment he just stood and stared. Then he found himself stumbling towards it, around the corner and down a side lane so narrow he hadn’t even noticed it before. And there, tucked around the back of an industrial maintenance hangar, was a darkened storefront, its windows all blacked out – just a faint glow of light to suggest that there was anything inside. There was no sign above the shop – only a smaller, simpler replica of the clock set into the door.

And, through the smudged glass panel – a glimpse of metallic hair and dark spectacles.

_Nanse. Finally._

He took a steadying breath, gripped the handle with one bloody hand, and pushed the door open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. A glimpse of Nanse, at least... 
> 
> Poor Din. I'm not going to pretend it wasn't fun making him malfunction his way through the city but there we are. I hope you enjoyed the journey. Any feedback/kudos/comments always much appreciated. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	4. The Engineer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din meets Nanse (finally!). And, uh, it does not go so well.

He pushed the door open and was mildly amused to hear the ‘ding’ of a little bell as he did so.

The engineer was hunched over a workbench that doubled as the shop’s counter, focused intently on a complicated circuit board. She looked up briefly when he came in, but returned to her work without a word.

Despite its darkened exterior, inside the store was full of soft, yellow light that seemed to emanate from the very walls. When he looked a little closer, Din realised that in fact the interior was covered in the same complex clockwork as he’d seen outside, all of it working together as some sort of perpetual motion power source. It was astonishing. And beautiful. And for a moment he simply stood there, enraptured by the intricate movement of the very walls around him. He didn’t know if it was the recent near-death experience or the the blood loss or the hypnotic lull of the clockwork, but he found himself swaying on his feet a little.

A sparking sound snapped him out of it, and he flinched instinctively, expecting more trouble from his armour, before realising it had come from the workbench, where the engineer was carefully soldering connections on the circuit board.

He took a step closer and tilted his helmet towards her. “Nanse?”

She made a quiet ‘hmm’ of affirmation, as if irritated at being disturbed, but didn't look up. As if having a Mandalorian in her shop was a commonplace affair – a mere inconvenience.

He wasn’t sure how to react to that. People were usually either scared of him, or tried to pick a fight with him. He was used to hauling in bounties, not asking people for favours, and he couldn’t afford to mess this up. Cara’s drawling criticism of his ‘bedside manner’ when dealing with the people of Sorgan sprang to mind and he chose his words carefully. He wasn’t used to being the one making conversation.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Uh. The clock. Outside. All this…” he gestured around. “It’s your handiwork?”

She nodded absently, applying a fusing iron to the circuit-board with pinpoint precision.

“It’s… impressive,” he said. And he meant it. He’d never seen such workmanship before. He was beginning to think Greef was right about her abilities and his hopes lifted a little, though he still had no idea what an artisan like her was doing on a shitrock of a moon like this.

She kept her eyes on her work but gave a scathing little smile. “You here for a clock, Mando?”

“No. I… I have a job for you.”

“Well, there’s a waiting list,” she sighed. Almost sounded bored. “Half a solar cycle.”

He ran the math in his head. The tiny moon’s cycles were short, but that still amounted to several standard months. A frustrated growl escaped his sore throat. The rustling feedback in his helmet was rising and falling in sharp waves, making it hard to think straight. The adrenaline from the fight had worn off now, and every ounce of his Beskar weighed down on him. He was tired, he was hurting, and he’d had enough of this stinking city. He hadn’t come all this way to wait half a damn cycle…

“No. It can’t wait,” he barked, setting his fist down on the worktop – a little harder than he meant to.

She froze in place for a moment before slowly placing her tools down on the counter and looking him up and down. To all outward appearances she seemed the picture of calm, but he could see the pulse at her throat making a rapid pattern. Her left hand slid out of sight and he could only imagine the kinds of weapons she might have hidden under the counter to protect her from a place like this. From customers like him.

He softened his tone. “Please. I need your help.”

She paused, staring up at him with such intensity it was as if she could see straight through his faceplate. She was afraid, yes, but she was prepared to stand her ground. He gave a small nod of apology and slid his good arm across the counter, showing her the scorch marks on his wrist bracer. “I need… a specialist.”

For a moment, her terse front dropped and her curiosity got the better of her. It wasn’t every day you got the offer to work on a Mandalorian's armour, after all. Most people never even got to see one up close – unless, of course, they had a bounty on their head...

She reached tentatively out to touch the vambrace, the zoom lenses of her spectacles clicking into place automatically, and he noticed for the first time that her eyes were the same dark, shifting, metallic blue as her hair. Her face grew softer as she inspected the wrist piece, carefully turning his arm this way and that to inspect the mechanisms, tutting at the damage, and letting her eyes rove critically across the rest of his armour, as if he were nothing but a piece of machinery.

Her frown returned as she prodded something on the underside of his vambrace with a thin, tapered tool. For a second the buzzing in his helmet subsided, before an arc of electricity shot out of the bracer with a squeal of feedback. He winced, his hand reflexively closing into a fist again, but Nanse simply took half a step back and nodded, as if she’d been expecting that exact outcome, and her gaze finally returned to the T in his visor.

“It’s gonna cost you,” she said flatly.

He winced again, flexing his hand open and shut in an attempt to ease the dull ache in his fingers. “But you can fix it?” His voice came out of the modulator with a crackle - the telltale beginning of another malfunction. He tried to ignore it. 

She blinked slowly at the question. “I can fix anything,” she said, but somehow the words didn’t come off as arrogant or conceited – just the simple truth.

And he believed her. There was just one problem: he barely had enough funds to refuel and get the Razor Crest to the next system. He dumped his remaining credits onto the counter.

“This is all I have.”

She didn’t even bother to count it, shaking her head and turning back to her circuit board. “Sorry, Mando.”

The grating hum in his helmet was setting his teeth on edge and he had to force the words out through his clenched jaw, “How much then?”

She gave another one of those rueful half-smiles. “More than you can afford.”

He sighed. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but he was running out of time and patience.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “How about this?”

He set the bounty puck down in front of her and activated the hologram. The translucent image spun in a slow circle, reflecting in the real Nanse’s glasses.

He braced for her reaction – for the fight or flight response to kick in. There was always an initial moment of shock, as the bounty slowly realised just how deep in shit they were. Then, usually, they ran. Sometimes they attacked, out of sheer desperation or overblown confidence. More often, they broke – pleading and begging and crying for him to have mercy. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was expecting from this quiet, unassuming engineer, but it certainly wasn’t... indifference.

She glanced up at the puck, briefly and impassively, and returned to her work.

“You plan on taking me in?” she asked, in the same tone one might offer a drink.

“If I have to,” he replied shortly, and there was no disguising the threat in it.

She nodded slowly. “You know what they do to bounty hunters in this city?” she said, in the same mild tone. “You’re lucky they haven’t stripped you for parts already.”

“They tried,” he growled. His bruised and bleeding body was hardly about to let him forget about it.

She smirked a little at that – another odd response, when faced with a pissed off Mandalorian – and pointed the thin, needle-like tool right at the centre of his chest. “Faulty parts, by the look of it.”

His temper flared at the same time his armour misfired – almost as if it was responding to his rising heartbeat. Or her taunts. Either way, the shock took him to one knee. He pressed a fist into the floor to keep himself upright as electricity tore through his brain, splintering icy fingers through his spine, his heart, his wounded arm. When it finally subsided, he was panting for breath and the engineer was staring at him.

He forced himself back up to his feet and leaned against the counter for a minute, gathering what was left of his dignity and strength, wondering how much more of this he could stand before passing out completely.

“Ohhh, you’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t you?” she said softly – not mocking this time, but without all that much sympathy either.

“So are you,” he managed through gritted teeth, tapping the puck with one gloved finger. “This is just one. Guy who gave it to me said there were a whole lot more on your head.”

She shot him a terse look and picked up the puck, spinning it in her fingers and considering the holographic version of herself for a few moments. She did a very good job of appearing impassive, hiding behind those dark glasses, but he could see the tension in her jaw as she examined the specifics of her bounty. The price on her head wasn’t huge, but it was enough to attract the attention of most hunters – it also didn’t require her being brought in alive.

She shut off the projection abruptly and slid the puck back over to him with a sigh. “Okay, Mando,” she said, leaning across the counter to look directly into his faceplate. “Let’s say you try to take me in – just assuming for a second that you even _could_ …” she paused to appraise his scorched armour and give him a pointed look which he endured with a sigh of his own.

“This city is run on blood money,” she continued, tapping her tool against the pile of credits on the counter. “The gangs buy up bounties, debts, bankrupted businesses – and trade them for ‘protection’. The poor sucker gets to live, so long as they stay on R’Ossel Vorna and spend the rest of their days paying off interest that somehow never seems to get any smaller...” 

Din gave a small nod of understanding. He knew of the city’s practices. The Vornian tradition of gentrified human trafficking. The last desperate choice of those who thought this facade of ‘freedom’ was better than facing the Guild. He’d been here a few times before, chasing marks, and the darkness of the underworld permeated every corner of the city. The first time, he’d found his target already dead - left to rot in an alleyway. Another time, the bounty had been more afraid of breaking his deal with some mobster than he was of being taken in by the Mandalorian, and had wept all the way to the carbonite chamber.

She gave him a faint, twisted smile, watching his realisation dawn. “The gangs take their investments _very_ seriously," she said. "And I owe them... a considerable sum,” she added with a wince. “You try to take me in, you won’t even make it back to your ship. If you’re lucky, they’ll pay you for the bounty, add it to my debt, and let you leave. Most likely they’ll just kill you for the puck...”

Suddenly her calm, restrained manner made a world of sense - the threat of another bounty was nothing but an extension of her debts, and nothing to compare with the threat of whoever had her trapped here. He felt an unexpected pang of pity.

She shrugged, almost apologetically. “I’m surprised you made it this far…”

A wave of hopelessness threatened to swamp him. She was right. He almost _hadn’t_ made it. Those thugs in the alley must have seen his tracking fob and known he was after a bounty. Even worse – they’d got away. Getting back to the Razor Crest – getting back to the child – felt like an impossible task all of a sudden. And even if he did, there was still the matter of his broken armour…

“There must be something…” he began, holding up the puck, “I can... make this disappear. Trade this for the work. It’ll be one off your back at least–”

But she seemed resigned to her fate and had begun shaking her head before he'd even finished the sentence. “It won’t make any difference,” she said dully, and he wondered just how much she owed. And why.

He could see her fear now, hidden so carefully behind those spectacles, behind her upright standing – he saw it in the way she clenched the edge of the counter, in the almost imperceptible tremor of her voice, in the set of her jaw.

He was used to disengaging his empathy when it came to bounties. It was a job. And they usually deserved whatever they got. He'd almost convinced himself that he was carrying out some sort of justice. But there was no justice here. Only mobsters and crooks and bribes and slavery. He thought of Kuill, forced to work three lifetimes for his freedom. He thought of the child, traded for a pile of Beskar... Perhaps there was something poetic about his armour punishing him for that sin. He would never pay off that particular debt of guilt but maybe he could do something to offset it...

“I can get you out of here,” he said, cementing the belief in his own head as he said it. “Let me help you. And then you can help me. Fix… this.” He pressed one hand to his chest plate, feeling the buzz of broken circuits beneath his palm. 

She almost seemed to consider it. A fleeting glimpse of hope brightened her eyes momentarily, but then a sad smile took its place and she shook her head. “I just want to be left alone,” she said. “And you should get out of here while you can.”

He was about to protest, to say… something – anything, to persuade her – when the bell above the door rang out with a gentle ding. And he watched her face change from surprise to dread to fierce determination as she looked over his shoulder. In the fraction of a second it took him to spin with his blaster drawn, she had her own firearm pointed towards the door, and he finally got to see what she had stashed under the counter: a wicked looking double-barrelled pistol with a laser sight.

“Not in my shop,” she snapped.

A pair of figures stood in the doorway – their own weapons raised in a four-way standoff. Din was unsurprised to see the same two attackers from earlier – the one who’d tried to garrotte him now wielding a rifle; the other still twirling that same nasty curved blade from before. He mentally nicknamed them Strangler and Knives and categorised them as ‘soon-to-be-deceased’ as a surge of anger warmed his blood. The dot of Nanse’s laser was trained steadily on Strangler’s heart, while Din’s blaster pointed at Knives’ face. 

“You again?” he rasped, with an aggravated sigh. 

Knives glared at him momentarily but ignored the question, pointing his blade at the engineer instead. “No need to involve yourself in this, Nanse,” he said. “We’re under orders.”

Din’s stomach dropped at the familiar exchange. He stopped himself from looking around at the woman behind him but heard her adjust her grip on her blaster.

“He’s not a hunter,” she lied calmly, “He’s a _customer_. And this is a business transaction.”

Knives’ gaze dropped briefly to the pile of credits beside the Mandalorian and he gave a cold grin.

“Then whose puck is that?” he sneered, “You doing a side deal with the Mando? That would be a very bad idea, Nanse...”

Din felt the tension in the air tighten a few notches but Nanse’s voice came out low and steady. “Get out of my shop.”

Knives smiled amicably, showing his jagged teeth, “Calm down. We’re not here for you. And you don’t want 'obstruction of duties' added to your list. Just give us the puck and let us take the Mando. If there's any spare parts left, we'll toss 'em your way, how about that?”

There was a long, agonising silence and Din prepared for the split-second reaction of all hell breaking loose. A cold stone of guilt lay heavy in his stomach for bringing more trouble and debt to her doorstep and he attempted to subtly shift his position to shield the unarmoured engineer while still allowing her room to shoot past him. But instead of the blaster fire he was expecting to hear there was a slow exhalation and the sound of her firearm powering down.

This time he did turn, and saw a look of absolute resignation on her face as she lowered her gun, doing her best to avoid the Mandalorian's eyeline. After a moment's heavy consideration, she picked up the puck and tossed it to Knives.

When she spoke again it was barely above a whisper. “Just get out. All of you.”

Din lowered his own blaster slowly, his mind whirling like the clockwork that covered the walls, assessing his reduced odds – two against one, with the Strangler blocking the only exit – and the chances of making it out of the shop without being shot full of holes. Slim to none.

He didn’t blame the engineer for backing down. It was the sensible choice. Why should she sacrifice the meagre living she’d managed to scratch out here for a bounty hunter she’d just met? She'd tried to warn him this would happen…

“Well, you heard her, Mando,” Knives said with a satisfied grin, holding out his free hand for the Mandalorian’s weapon. “Let’s go.”

The urge to smash his fist into the smug Vornian's face was almost too strong to resist, but he could hear the faint echo of his _buir_ ’s voice in the back of his mind; feel the ghost of a hand on his shoulder, holding him back: _Choose your battles carefully. Pick your battlefield. Face your enemies on your terms. Sometimes you can’t fight. Sometimes you have to run. And sometimes, you must be patient._

He took a steadying breath and passed over his blaster with deliberate slowness, wary of the proximity of the other man’s hooked blade. Knives poked him in his injured arm with the barrel of the gun and it took all his strength to quash down the rising rage threatening to consume him.

"I said let's go, bucket head," Knives jeered, and Din let himself be herded towards the exit, his hands raised, every nerve in his body thrumming.

The little bell above the door dinged once more and he almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. Instead, he paused in the doorway, turning back to nod respectfully at the engineer who was still standing there in shock, staring blankly at the counter.

“Thank you,” he said softly, “For your time.”

She lifted her eyes to him with a look of bleak helplessness and a silent apology passed between them. 

She took in a halting breath, as if she were about to say something, but before she could speak he was being shoved out into the alleyway and the door snapped shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey there, OC. I hope you like her. :)
> 
> So close, and yet... so much more trouble to come.
> 
> Comments, suggestions and feedback always appreciated. x


	5. The Tunnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din is in a heap of trouble... And does not enjoy asking for help.

The Mandalorian allowed himself to be jostled down the alleyway – Knives behind him, Strangler in front – and out into the street once more. The muzzle of his own blaster dug into the small of his back, below his armour plating. His fingers itched for it but he forced himself to be patient. To wait for the right moment. To choose his battleground.

As they turned the corner he glanced up at the ornate clock and silently wished the engineer well, hoping he hadn’t brought down too much trouble on her head, adding another puck to her debt and leading the gangsters to her door... He didn’t waste time mourning the opportunity to fix his armour. He’d been raised to be pragmatic. And if Nanse wasn’t prepared to offer her help then he wasn’t about to kidnap her. She wasn’t his bounty and she had enough problems of her own. Plenty of problems, it turned out. As did he.

He risked one last look back down the alley but the door to the shop was shut and the windows dark.

“Keep moving,” Knives snapped, grabbing hold of his arm and shoving him out into the street towards a huge, disused hanger, littered with old, rusting parts and detritus. He guessed they aimed to kill him here. ‘Strip him for parts’, as Nanse had predicted. He appraised the terrain with a cold feeling of detachment. It was a decent enough place to make a stand. Plenty of room to move. A variety of cover. And, if he was quick, he could manage two opponents without too much trouble – even without his blaster. But just as the thought crossed his mind, three more figures appeared, silhouetted in the gaping doorway of the hangar and Knives let out a low satisfied snigger.

Okay... Five against one. That changed things a little. He’d have to be more than just quick. Lucky, too.

Knives jabbed him in the kidney to push him further into the hanger and the others closed in until he was well and truly surrounded by a motley selection of gang members dressed in the same dark hoods and flak vests as the others.

He stood motionless, with only the slightest tilt of his helmet to allow him to gauge the position of his enemies, and forced his breathing and his heart rate to slow.

Five against one. He’d had worse odds.

There was always an odd sort of calm in these moments. When there was no other option but stand and fight. Fight or die.

He wasn’t sure how much strength he had left in him but it didn’t matter. He had been in this situation enough times to know he could push the exhaustion aside; he could ignore the pain and the aches and whatever malfunctions his armour pelted him with. Because he wasn’t about to lose this fight. He had to get back to his ship. Back to the child. He should never have left him in the first place...

He pushed the guilt down too. There was no room for emotion or doubt right now. Only focus. Strength. Speed.

_And maybe a little faith._

“Boss wants your armour,” Strangler spat at him, snapping his attention out of his head and back into the present. 

“And the Imps want your dead body,” Knives added, walking a slow half circle around his prey. “Which means we get paid twice.”

The Mandalorian didn’t react. Didn’t move a muscle. Processed the news coolly and objectively. So, the Imperial orders _had_ reached this far. He was only mildly surprised, and the information didn't change anything in the immediate future. He still had five men to kill before he could worry about the Empire… His hands curled into fists at his sides and he heard the leather of his gloves creak.

“But no reason to rush, eh, Mando?” Knives said with a smirk, snatching the cuffs from the back of Din’s belt and tossing them to Strangler.

“Boss wants to take you to pieces, bit by bit, and see what’s underneath…” There was a resounding ‘ting’ as Knives tapped his helmet with the curved blade and he was barely able to stop himself from reaching back and snapping the man’s neck right there and then. His fingers twitched at the thought of it…

“Cuff him,” barked Knives, jamming a pistol barrel against the base of the Mandalorian’s skull.

Din grimaced coldly beneath his helmet as he let Strangler fasten the bindings around his wrists. He could bear their taunts. He could bide his time. Wait for the moment to strike. And use their weaknesses – and stupidity – against them. He wasn’t overly concerned about being bound by his own handcuffs – his vambrace controlled the release mechanism, so long as it didn’t pick this particular moment to malfunction. His main concern right now was the shit-eating grin that passed from face to face as his captors took a moment to admire their new prisoner. He knew that look. It never ended well.

“I wanna see what’s under that bucket,” Strangler said, leaning closer and nudging the barrel of his rifle beneath the Mandalorian’s chin. “And I owe you a broken nose…”

Time slowed to a crawl as tension crackled in the air around them. Every muscle thrummed with preparedness – to move, to strike, to dodge, to take a hit if it needed to. His mind whirled through the myriad possible ways the next few seconds might go; every move his opponents might make, and how he would counter them. It was like a dance, visualising the steps before they happen and trusting that his body would follow without the need for conscious thought.

Whatever happened, he knew one thing: he was not about to let them take off his helmet.

His hands shot up to grab hold of Strangler’s rifle, but in the split second before all hell broke loose an ominous sound froze all of them in their tracks. As one, they turned to watch a small cylindrical grenade bounced to a stop inside the circle of gangsters with an innocent little tink-tink-tink.

For a moment they all stared at the tiny red light blinking on the side of the device, blankly trying to process where it had come from. Then, as their brains finally grasped the gravity of the situation, there was an almighty scramble and a chorus of swearing.

Din dove to the side just as the grenade activated – not in an explosion, but in a flash of white light, and a piercing high-pitched noise that sent every receptor in his helmet squealing. He rolled as he landed, more out of instinct than anything, and came up to one knee, twisting the release on his cuffs and bracing for attack. But none came. The hangar was a filled with thick white smoke, and as the heat sensors on his HUD kicked in he could make out five humanoid outlines stumbling around aimlessly or collapsed on their knees, clutching at their heads in pain.

He stumbled a little himself as he got to his feet. His ears were still ringing and his balance was out of whack – which is why he missed completely when he swung a wild haymaker at whoever grabbed his arm. He spun with the punch and managed to stop himself following up with a second, better aimed blow as a small figure with a shock of electric blue hair ducked easily under his elbow.

“You…” he exhaled.

The engineer blinked up at him through tinted glasses, incongruously calm amidst the chaos. “This way,” she whispered, and turned away without waiting for his acknowledgement, slipping through the smoke and disappearing into an open grating at the back of the hangar.

He didn’t need telling twice. He followed without a word, picking his way around his fallen enemies and scooping up his blaster from where Knives had dropped it. The grating led to a metal ladder that stretched down into what looked like some kind of mineshaft. Below him, the engineer was descending fast into the yawning darkness, already almost out of sight. He pulled the grating shut behind him as the first confused shouts began to ring out from above and his attackers finally realised he was missing.

A part of him, still filled to the brim with adrenaline and rage, wanted to throw himself back into the fray and finish it. To make sure not a single one of them ever got up again. But he forced himself to keep moving down, rung by rung. Revenge and injured pride were not the same thing as honour. And sometimes it was better to run. He’d been learning _that_ lesson over and over ever since he’d found the kid...

_The kid._

A cold jolt of panic shot through him and he almost slipped his footing. If the gang knew who he was, they would surely know which ship was his. And if they couldn’t find him, that’s exactly where they’d be heading right now…

He doubled his speed down the ladder, breathing hard as the air became hotter and hotter and his armour became heavier and heavier the deeper they ventured. He’d almost forgotten about his injuries in the preparation for battle, but now they were clamouring for his attention once again. The wound in his right shoulder throbbed with every downward step, the gash on his left arm had reopened, and his head still jangled with the after-effects of whatever that flashbang was. 

By the time he reached the bottom of the mineshaft the electrics beneath his armour were buzzing like a swarm of bees. Feedback screeched in his ears, and the familiar prickle of gathering lightning shivered across his skin. He stood swaying for a moment, hanging onto the ladder to catch his breath, numbly resigned to the inevitability of another malfunction.

“Are you okay?” Nanse’s voice came from behind him, soft and muted in the enclosed space.

He let his head hang between his arms, too tired to even nod. Not sure if he wanted to. “What _was_ that?” he asked hoarsely.

“Frequency charge,” she said, closer now, peering at him in that same curious way that made him feel more like a piece of machinery than a person. “Sorry if it screwed with your circuits. But I figured you’d be able to handle it better than them. Here, let me–“

He felt her hand on his arm once more and shoved her off, more roughly than he meant to, but all too aware that his armour was moments from shorting out again.

“Don’t– “ he managed, before the wave of electricity hit him. The engineer took a careful step back, waiting patiently as he curled in on himself, grunting through the worst of the shocks skittering up and down his armour.

When the last misfires finally faded he sagged against the wall. His chest was so tight his breath came out hitched and he fought to control it, along with the panicked realisation that the misfires were getting worse. Each successive malfunction seemed more powerful than the last and he half expected to see smoke curling from beneath his armour. He pulled at his cuirass to try to get some more air into his lungs and Nanse darted forward to help, her nimble fingers working at the buckles, her eyes scouring over the circuits inside the plating with a frown.

“This thing’s going to kill you,” she said flatly, “If you take it off I can–“

He pushed her hands away again – more gently this time – and pulled his breastplate closed again, shaking his head wearily. “No. No time…”

His armour would have to wait. He had to get back to the ship. Back to the kid. She pursed her lip but didn’t argue as he levered himself upright and took a few staggering steps down the passageway. A narrow tunnel continued into darkness in either direction and he looked from left to right uncertainly. 

“Airpads. Which way?” he barked.

She paused for a second, as if she was about to say something, but then she simply nodded and headed off down the tunnel. He didn’t have the time or liberty to doubt her. She was his only chance at getting out of here right now and he’d lost all sense of direction. His HUD flickered erratically and he could only get a vague reading on the Razor Crest’s homing beacon. He had to trust her.

The tunnel had been bored out of stone and earth, shored up with steel girders and crossbeams that looked as though they’d seen much better days. Dim lights set into the floor led the way, but didn’t manage to illuminate much beyond a few feet ahead, and a fine yellow dust filled the space, swirling around them as they moved through it. He was used to being underground, but this was nothing like the quiet sanctuary of the covert on Nevarro. The heat was oppressive, and the acrid air burned at his lungs, even through his helmet’s filters. He wondered how the hell Nanse was managing to breathe in the stifling air, but the next time she looked around he could see she was wearing an industrial-looking mask of her own, covering her mouth and nose. Great. Something poisonous then. This place just kept getting better and better...

She gave him another silent nod and he followed wordlessly as she took a series of turns down branching tunnels without hesitation.

It felt like they’d been walking for miles. They must be under the heart of the city by now, and the tunnel had begun to gradually climb towards the surface. He wanted to ask how close to the airpads they were but he no longer had enough breath to ask any questions. He felt a hundred pounds heavier than usual and every step jarred his aching bones. But the passageway went on and on and all he could do was keep following the silhouetted figure of the engineer as she forged ahead, the distance between them getting further the more he slowed.

She must have noticed him struggling because she took her pace down a notch, dropping back close enough for him to see the disapproving expression on her face whenever she glanced over her shoulder.

“You should stop for a minute,” she said.

He shook his head sharply, wheezing out words on each exhale. “Gotta get… to my ship.”

She stopped abruptly, blocking the tunnel and turning to face him square on. “At least let me take a look at your armour–”

“No,” he snapped, pushing past her.

“You can’t fight them like that,” she called after him.

He didn’t reply. He had to get back. Had to get to the kid. Had to keep going…

“They’ll be all over the airpads already,” she said, her voice quieter now – a dull, resigned tone. “You won’t make it.”

He came to a begrudging halt but didn’t turn around, helplessness and frustration bubbling up inside him. He knew she was right but he didn’t have to like it. This whole damn mission had gone from bad to worse to catastrophic and he wanted to put his fist through something.

“Then why are you helping me?” he said, more than a little bitterly.

She didn’t reply right away, but when she did it was barely a whisper. “You said you could get me out of here.”

He’d almost forgotten about the deal he’d proposed; had written it off as an option. He turned slowly. “What changed your mind?”

She gave a half-hearted shrug. A half-hearted smile. “You didn’t trade in my puck. D’you know how many times that’s happened?”

He could guess the answer but he stayed silent and let her supply it.

“Never,” she said, holding his eyeline for a moment longer than was comfortable.

He nodded in quiet understanding. “Well. Offer still stands,” he said. “But we need to hurry…” He glanced back up the tunnel, aware that every second they waited put the kid in greater danger.

“Wait–” Her hand shot out to stop him before he could start off again, gripping hold of his wrist with surprising strength. He stared down at it, then up at her petrol-blue eyes, which flared with a fierce intensity.

“Listen to me,” she said in a low voice. “They’re going to be waiting for us. And if you’re my best chance off this rock, I need to know you’re not going to… spontaneously combust.”

She let go of his wrist and reached up to his cuirass, her fingers hovering over the clasps at his shoulders as if waiting for permission. “Let me. Please. Or we’re both dead.”

Every instinct told him to flinch back at the prospect of someone else messing with his armour but he stood stock still, inclining his head with a sigh. In truth, he didn’t have the energy to stop her. And as much as it pained him to admit it, she was right. He wouldn’t last long in a fight in his current state, and pride was no help to him now.

Besides, she seemed to know what she was doing. A laser-sharp focus took over her face as she released the fastenings and peeled the plating away from his chest. He took him a deep breath, glad to be free of some of the weight, at least for a moment. The lenses in the engineer’s glasses ticked into place and she tapped a finger to her temple, activating a tiny headlamp connected to her spectacles as she delved into the wiring with a set of miniature tools she plucked out of her belt.

He leaned against the wall, grateful for the enforced break, and watched her tinker. She worked quickly – surprisingly so, for someone who surely can’t have seen the inside of a Mandalorian’s armour before – and he realised he knew next to nothing about the engineer, besides the sparse information on her bounty puck. She was a little younger than him, from what he could tell (he no longer trusted any assumptions based on species ageing after meeting the kid) but the hard set of her eyes told him she’d been living a hard life for some time. He wondered how long she’d been working off her debts. How she got them in the first place. If she deserved her bounties. What kind of person he was putting his trust into. But now was not the time to ask such things. And perhaps they were her secrets to keep. So long as she could fix him, he didn’t much care about the skeletons in her closet right now.

A loud tut and the smell of burning circuits snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked up to see Nanse glaring at his cuirass and sucking on a scorched finger. “Not much I can do on the fly,” she said with an aggravated sigh. “You’re gonna need a whole system reset. And it’s hard to tell what the root of the problem is without looking in there,” she added, nodding at his helmet.

“No,” he said instantly, long-engrained reflexes bracing to stop her if she reached for it. But she simply shrugged, wiped the sweat out of her eyes, and hunched over the plating in her hands once more. He let his head rock back against the wall. “Just… do what you can.”

The minutes dragged by as she poked and prodded at the inner workings of his cuirass, her disapproval growing deeper with every spark. “What the hell did you do to it?” she frowned.

He let the accusation slide. “Got caught in an explosion. Few weeks back. Hasn’t been the same since.”

She switched to his vambrace without looking up, twisting his arm slightly to access the panel underneath. “What about your… enclave? Covert? Don’t you have someone to do this?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have come looking for you,” he said shortly. He had enough to worry about right now without being reminded of the missing Armourer.

She raised an eyebrow at his response but didn’t comment. And with a soft, ‘huh’, she reconnected something in his bracer that suddenly cleared the flickering vision of his HUD and cut off the tinny feedback sound he’d almost forgotten was buzzing through his ears.

She passed his chestplate back to him and he replaced it hurriedly, relieved to be back in one piece again.

“Well,” she said, slotting her tools back into her belt, “That should stop it misfiring for a while at least. I’ve had to reduce your power supply a little though. And I can’t guarantee all your bells and whistles will work at full capacity. At least not until I can get a proper look under the hood…” she added, with a significant look at his helmet.

He ignored that particular insinuation. He didn’t like the idea of relinquishing his helmet for maintenance _at all_ , but that was an argument for another time. And whatever she’d done seemed to have worked well enough. He tested the controls on his vambrace with a flex of his arm and everything responded as it should.

“Thank you,” he said, and she gave a distracted shrug of acceptance, her eyes darting nervously up the tunnel.

“Well. Shall we?” she said, gesturing for him to lead this time, and they set off once more.

As the tunnel climbed higher, it widened out until they were able to walk shoulder to shoulder, and eventually they could see the dim glow of daylight up ahead. The yellow haze was beginning to clear and Nanse pulled off her face mask with a grateful gasp of air. His throat still felt red raw but he wasn’t sure how much of that was the near-strangling from earlier or the poisonous gas he’d been breathing for the last half an hour. What he wouldn’t give for a Bacta bath right now…

He shook the thought away. They were close. And there was battle waiting for them. He took out his blaster at the same time as she pulled her double-barrelled weapon out of a bag she had slung across her back and they exchanged a sombre look.

“You got any more tricks in there?” he asked, thinking of the frequency charge grenade that had knocked out six grown men in an instant.

She shot him a grim smirk. “I can take care of myself.”

He didn’t doubt it, but he could sense the nerves behind her words. Her pupils were blown wide by darkness and adrenaline, and her fingers fidgeted over her blaster, checking and re-checking each component absent-mindedly. She wasn’t a fighter. But she had courage. And cunning. A worthy ally to have beside him if they had to make another stand. He just hoped he could keep his end of the bargain and get them out of there...

At the end of the tunnel was a metal gate that creaked open onto a maintenance scaffold that spread out via narrow walkways directly beneath the airpads. Silently, they followed the Din’s tracking beacon, slowly and carefully making their way towards the Razor Crest.

The sound of muttering voices grew louder the closer they crept. Someone barking orders. The clatter of boots on the panels above. When they were directly underneath, Din ran a scan and his heat sensors picked up a cluster of figures gathered around the ship; a handful more scattered around the airpads all around.

“There’s a dozen, at least,” he told her in a whisper. “If you can distract them I’ll clear us a path to the ship–“

But she was already shaking her head, and he recognised the tell tale signs of panic in her darting eyes. “This is a bad idea. A really bad idea… There’ll be more of them. There always is. They won’t stop. They’ll–“

He grabbed hold of her arm, fixing her in place. “Nanse,” he said firmly, “You want to get out of here? You need to trust me.”

She sagged a little in his grip and he wondered what kind of threats these people had made to make her so afraid. She cringed as she looked up at the airpads, desperately searching for some other option.

“What about a different ship?” she suggested, “I can get you inside if you can fly...”

“It has to be this one,” he said.

“But–”

“No.”

“It’s just a ship!” she hissed, yanking her arm out of his grasp and backing away.

“My child is in there!” he snapped right back, his own fear rushing to the surface in a wave of fury.

She stopped mid-step, peering at him through her spectacles as if she was seeing him for the first time.

“You have a child?”

He faltered, hearing his own words echo back to him. _My child._ Not _the_ child. _Mine_. He shook his head. “I… There’s no time. I can’t let them take my ship.” He held out a hand to bridge the space between them. “Nanse. I promise you. If you help me, I will get you off this kriffing moon. Now, are you coming or not?”

She swallowed, eyes wide, whole body trembling. But she took a half step back towards him.

“Alright then,” he said softly, letting his hand drop. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has taken... a while to write. The world has been a bit distracting lately, to say the least. But surely more fanfic is what we need in these trying times, right?
> 
> So here’s a sightly longer chapter, and the promise of a fight to come. Hope you enjoyed. 
> 
> (P.S. Stay safe, y’all!)


	6. The Ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: Battle scene ahead. Expect blood and violence.

In truth, he felt anything less than calm, but the helmet was good for masking such things, and the modulator erased the edge in his voice when he promised her everything would be all right. She was afraid, so he had to be fearless. But all he could think about was the child, all alone up there, and the army of murderous goons surrounding his ship.

They crept beneath the landing pad to the far edge where a ladder reached up behind the Razor Crest. There were enemies all over the airpad, but they were mostly concentrated on the other side where the regular walkway connected to the landing base. They weren’t expecting their prey to come from underground.

A resounding, repetitive clanging noise made the Mandalorian wince as they passed beneath the ship – those goons were trying to break the door in with some kind of battering ram - and although he trusted that the Crest’s defences would keep them out, he took it personally when anyone caused damage to his ship. He muttered a curse low enough that his modulator failed to pick it up, but Nanse still shot a cautious look at him as they reached the base of the ladder, sensing his raised hackles.

Without a word, she emptied her bag, carefully lining up three more of those tiny but deceptively powerful frequency grenades and a small black box with a series of lights on one side. The Mandalorian didn’t stop to question any of it. He trusted her, and there was no time to come up with a more refined plan than he’d already laid out: _Distract them while I clear a path to the ship_.

She nodded decisively but he could see the tension in her jaw – the effort it was taking her to follow him, to ignore her instincts to run. He sometimes forgot other people didn’t live like this, on the edge of fear and death, and he wanted to reassure her but he knew anything he said would be empty. There was no surety in any of this. The only thing he could be certain of was that there would be a fight, and it would be messy, and loud, and faster than seemed possible – over in a blink, despite the thick slowing of time that turned the battlefield into a haze of blurred movement. And, if they were lucky, they would come out the other side.

“Once we’re up there, stay behind me,” he whispered. But before he could set a foot on the ladder she had slipped past him, ducked under his arm, and scaled it almost to the top - a grenade in one hand and the black box tucked under her arm.

“Distraction first, right?” she said, with a smile that looked more forced than real, and disappeared over the rim of the airpad in a flash of metallic blue.

He cursed again and followed as fast as he could, but he’d barely reached the top when the first explosion detonated over by the entrance walkway and a billow of white smoke bloomed across the airpad.

 _Here we go…_

Confused shouts and pained screams rang out from the explosion site, hidden within the smoke, and the remaining gangsters began fanning out in a panic, searching for their unseen target. They didn’t get very far. A second blast reverberated through the airpad; a second cloud of white smoke; a second chorus of chaos. This one was closer, and Din’s circuits fizzed at the feedback. More bodies hit the deck, writhing at the high frequency assault, but those who were outside the blast radius opened fire, almost at random, and the Mandalorian returned a few carefully-aimed bolts as he made a break for the battlefield. He kept low, ducking behind the docking units that circled the outer rim of the landing base, trying to keep an eye in all directions as the cluster of still-standing gangsters closed in. They were trigger happy and didn't seem to care much if they hit their own men with their widely-spread attacks. Apparently, life was cheap on R’Ossel Vorna - unless you had half a dozen bounties on your head.

The Razor Crest sat twenty feet away, shrouded in smoke in the centre of the landing pad, and Din could just make out the small figure of the engineer crouched beneath it, fiddling with something on the underside. Peering harder, he saw the black box, whatever it was, stuck to the ship’s belly. The goons with the battering ram hadn't noticed her - yet - and he couldn’t decide which was worse: how quickly she’d gone and put herself in danger, or the fact that she was doing something untoward to his ship.

He didn’t have time to do anything about it, though. Nanse finished what she was doing and dropped to the deck, rolling out from beneath the ship towards him as flickering blue electric fire engulfed the ship with a crack like thunder. Electricity entangled the ship and everyone surrounding it, and Din watched in fascinated horror as the mobsters contorted and convulsed and fell silently, one by one – their bodies lying motionless and smoking. He’d had enough experience of electrocution the past few days to have an inkling of what that kind of pain might be like, but the speed and severity at which it had killed them left him gaping. The last of the crackling fire burnt itself out and his ship stood there, seemingly untouched, in a circle of charred bodies.

Nanse scrambled to join him behind the docking units, ducking beneath increasingly heavy fire as the remaining enemies followed the trail of chaos back to their position. Din spared an incredulous look her way before hastily scanning the ship’s stats with his vambrace controls. A cold fear settled in his stomach as he wondered whether the effects of the blue fire would have reached inside, too – to the child – but whatever Nanse had done had left no trace of damage.

“Your turn,” she said breathlessly, her eyes bright with adrenaline. “Wanna get that door open, huh?”

He grunted in reply, leaning past her to reel off three blaster shots in quick succession, each of them hitting their marks with a shower of sparks. A hail of bolts rained down around them in response and he instinctively hunched over the engineer, letting his Beskar deflect the few lucky shots that found their target. It went on that way for a while - the hurried exchange of blindfire - but they couldn't stay there forever. They were pinned down only a short dash away from the ship but he didn’t want to risk opening the bay doors remotely until they had a clear path. And for every one they shot down, more figures appeared through the smoke.

 _There’ll be more of them. There always is. They won’t stop_ , she’d said, back when she'd wanted to run. He was starting to believe her.

A sudden movement beside the Razor Crest caught his eye and two familiar faces came into view – his old friends Knives and Strangler, along with a handful of lackeys, one of them carrying a device that looked like a portable power cell. Nanse let out a little gasping ‘no!’ beside him, and when he glanced down at her she was staring at the device with a tortured expression on her face. His head whipped back to the ship to see them attaching the power cell to the door controls.

“What is that?” he snapped, panic gripping him once more, thinking of the child inside, “Is it a bomb?”

She didn’t reply – couldn’t reply – and the pieces fell into place with a dull realisation.

“Is that one of yours?” he asked, grabbing hold of her arm and trying to shake the answer out of her. 

She nodded numbly. She looked like she might throw up. “It’s not a bomb," she said, at last, "It’s a lockbreaker.”

He gave a sharp little jerk of his head, relief easing his shoulders down just a little, and let go of her. “Nothing can get into my ship.”

“This can,” she whispered, rubbing her arm where his fingers had dug into the flesh.

There was a shout, and the crowd around the ship stepped back as the device came to life with a high whining noise that almost sounded as if it was boring into the metal. He wanted more than anything to trust his ship’s defences but he couldn’t afford to doubt her. The child was in there. And if they got inside…

“Stay here,” he barked, shoving past her and forging out of cover, straight towards the ship. Blaster bolts ricocheted off his Beskar and he returned a few of his own, ducking and dodging through the smoke, trusting in the luck that had got him this far. As soon as he was close enough, he activated his whipcord at the nearest figure and it encircled the unfortunate goon’s neck twice before the Mandalorian yanked him off his feet. The rest let out a collection of yelps and yells when they saw the vision of steel and death bearing down on them. Some of them scattered, skirting behind the ship for cover; others stood their ground and were quickly dispatched with blaster and vibroblade and armoured fists. He’d always preferred close combat – the ebb and flow of it. The dance. He’d been taught to anticipate and turn on a hair’s breadth; to move with each blow, deflecting or attacking with minimal effort. To be quietly and effectively deadly. And now he was doubly so. Any obstacle that came between the Mandalorian and his child was removed methodically and without pause.

It was over in seconds. There had been seven of them by the ship – now there was only one. Knives and Strangler had been among those who fled and were nowhere to be seen, but he didn’t have time to search them out. Nanse’s lockbreaker had done its work – somehow overriding the Razor Crest’s unique, and, up ‘til now, unbreakable security measures. The bay doors hissed open, the access ramp slowly lowered, and the remaining goon took one look at the approaching Mandalorian and ducked inside before it was fully down.

Din charged forward just as a blaster bolt hit him square in the chest plate. He stumbled backward a step, winded, but forced himself to remain on his feet, to ignore the throbbing pain in his collarbone; the construction of his lungs desperately trying to take in air. But the shot was the least of his worries. A familiar crackle of electricity inside his cuirass told him that whatever temporary fixes Nanse had made to his armour had been undone by the blast and he swore in several languages as he felt the current ramping up for a misfire. _Not again_. _Not now._

He didn’t have time to brace for it – just as he regained his balance, he sensed a movement behind him and managed to dodge a lunging tackle by Strangler, sidestepping neatly to the side and wrapping an arm around the mobster’s neck. And, as the electrical charge reached breaking point, he pulled Strangler tight against his chest, jamming his vambrace against his throat and letting him take the brunt of the lightning strike shooting through his armour.

When it was over, he was shaking with the effort of staying upright. Strangler had gone slack in his arms and he let the body drop to the ground with a resounding thud. 

He wavered on his feet, his Beskar ticking with aftershocks. Every injury he’d sustained in the past twenty-four hours flared with renewed intensity. He turned wearily back to the ship. Just a few feet more and…

A pained scream cut through the air behind him - a voice he was just coming to know. He stuttered mid-stride, whipping a glance behind him. Two figures grappled at the edge of the airpad – one large, one small – Knives and Nanse, wrestling for control of that vicious curved blade... They were too far away to see clearly through the thick smoke; moving too erratically for him to risk a blaster shot. He hesitated, torn in two. The ship was almost within arm's reach and he could hear the child now - a muffled wailing that tugged at his aching chest.

He couldn't save them both. 

A few steps more and he was barrelling up the ramp and into the ship. His eyes went straight to the still-closed door of his quarters, the sound of the child’s wavering cry emanating from within, and his shoulders dropped in relief. A crash to his left directed him to the lone mobster who’d made it inside and was in the process of stripping out his weapons cache. The ill-fated goon barely had time to register the Mandalorian’s arrival before two gloved hands clamped around his head and snapped his neck like a wishbone.

Those same hands were trembling a moment later as he hit the controls to open his quarters, and his breath hitched when the door slid back to reveal the child – perfectly and completely fine, if a little rumpled from sleep and disturbed at all the loud noises. Its bright eyes welled with frightened tears as it looked up at him and he reached out to stroke the kid’s soft head, whispering a few comforting words in Mando’a without thinking. He had to physically resist the urge to scoop the baby up and squeeze him to his chest. There would be time for reunions later. He refused to consider the alternative. 

“Stay here,” he whispered hoarsely, wishing he could explain; wishing the child would stop looking so forlorn; stop reaching up for him with its little hands.

It physically pained him to take a step back but he did, snapping the door shut once more and whirling away to the ramp, unhitching his amban rifle from the rack by the door in one smooth movement. He kicked the limp body of the dead mobster out of the hatch and took a knee by the doorway, slotting a disintegrator bullet into the chamber. He let that cold, deadly calmness settle over him like a shroud as he sought out his first target. A squeeze of the trigger and there was one less mobster in existence.

Reload. Lead the target. Squeeze. Gone.

He would keep doing it until he ran out of bullets. He would keep doing it until they were all gone. They would pay for every second he’d spent on this godsdamned moon. For every drop of blood they’d squeezed out of him. For every credit they’d piled on Nanse’s debt–

He froze.

_Nanse._

He scoured the battlefield for her, but his HUD’s thermal scanner only picked up the bulky shapes of the few remaining gangsters scattered across the landing pads. Most of them were fleeing now, having watched their compatriots disintegrate one by one beside them. The Mandalorian had the high ground now, and there was no way he was ever giving up his ship again. He picked off another enemy, methodically reloading his rifle with a dry detachment he’d forged over years of doing what was necessary to survive; to protect his covert. But beneath, he could feel the familiar dread of failure laying heavy in his guts. He had promised the engineer freedom and he had left her behind.

His sights swept back over to where he’d last seen her, locked in combat with Knives, but there was no sign of either of them. He hesitated, lowering his rifle and risking a few steps down the ramp. The airpad was empty now, besides the scattered bodies of the fallen. “Nanse?” he shouted into the smoke.

His answer came in the form of a blaster bolt to his already wounded shoulder. The shot rebounded off his pauldron but half spun him round and left him hunched and hissing in pain. And out of the slowly dissipating smoke came a familiar figure that made his stomach drop – Knives, wearing a bloody grin and holding the engineer’s double-barrelled weapon loosely in the crook of his elbow.

The Mandalorian reloaded with numb fingers as he watched the man approach. “Where is she?” he demanded, re-shouldering his rifle and aiming it at Knives’ forehead, held steady with the heaviness of his guilt. He decided he didn’t want to know the answer. His finger tightened on the trigger.

But Knives was still smiling and he held up a fist, stopping a short distance away from the ramp. “She left you a present, Mando,” the mobster said, throwing whatever was in his hand in a lazy loop over the Mandalorian’s head and into the ship. It bounced once, twice, and rolled to a stop in the middle of the cargo bay.

He knew what it was before it had even landed. Knew it the moment he saw Knives’ self-satisfied grimace.

He threw himself in a desperate rolling dive down the ramp but it was too late. Nanse’s last frequency grenade blinked innocently before exploding in a wave of white light that knocked out every circuit in his helmet instantaneously. An impossibly high-pitched squeal sliced through his head and he couldn’t tell if he was still fallng or if the world was tilting around him. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t move, besides the involuntary convulsion of his muscles.

Somewhere, at a far, far distance, he could hear the child crying mournfully.

He tried to get up. Had to get up. The child was in danger. There was… someone... trying to harm him. He had to… Had to…

He managed to roll on his side but something pushed him back again. A heavy weight pressing down on his shoulder that made the wound there flare anew. He heard a groan escape his throat but was unable to lift his arms to protect himself. His eyes fluttered open but the light was still too bright and he could only make out a smudged outline of a person above him, a boot on his shoulder, arms reaching down towards his face.

He flinched when two hands gripped hold of his helmet, fingers clamping underneath his chin, feeling for the release catch. He grunted in protest, tried to twitch away, his own hands scrabbling at his sides but far too slow to stop the inevitable… Nothing seemed to work the way it should. Even breathing was an effort.

His eyes focused dimly on Knives’ upside down face as the mobster slowly, agonisingly, began pulling the helmet upwards. He could do nothing to stop him. All he could do was watch, and feel an empty kind of gratefulness that he would surely be dead soon. That he wouldn't have to live without his armour. It was not a noble death but it was better than the alternative. When he blinked, tears burned their way down his face.

But his helmet was barely past his chin when Knives stopped, frozen, his head suddenly jerking upward. A curved blade, glinting like a sickle moon, passed across Din’s vision and a curtain of red seemed to flow upward, drenching Knives’ chest. The hands on his helmet lost their grip. Knives slumped sideways and out of sight. And the Mandalorian took in a long, shuddering breath.

Blue hair and spectacles. Gentle but shaking hands adjusting something on his vambrace. A quiet voice asking him something, over and over again. The child, still wailing.

He blinked and the whole world jolted into focus.

“Mando,” the voice said again, with just an edge of panic, “Can you move?”

He looked up to see the engineer had taken Knives’ place in his upside down view. She let out a relieved breath when he nodded, and pushed hastily at his shoulders to help him sit up.

“We have to go,” she whispered, looking worriedly over her shoulder at the walkways, which reverberated with the sound of approaching boots. The smoke from the last grenade still filled the airpad, curling through the open door of the ship as if it were curious to see what was inside.

He shoved himself to his feet, feeling like gravity had just become twice as strong, and was grateful for the engineer’s steadying hand on his arm as they made their shambling way up the ramp and into the Razor Crest.

Nanse’s lockbreaker still hung from the outer controls and Din ripped it free with more violence than was strictly necessary, tossing it onto the deck next to the still bleeding corpse of Knives. The curved knife lay on the deck beside him. His throat had been cut from ear to ear.

He stared at the sight for a moment, painfully aware of how close he had come to losing everything, and gripped hold of Nanse’s shoulder as she passed him.

“Thank you,” he said gruffly.

She nodded, wincing a little at the pinch of his fingers, and it was only then that he noticed the dark patch of red, low on her belly. There was a jagged tear in her shirt and blood seeped steadily through the fabric, spreading slowly across her abdomen. She covered it with a hand and pulled herself free of his grip, heading further into the ship.

“You need… medical attention,” he said.

She lowered herself carefully down onto a storage crate. “I’ll manage,” she said through gritted teeth.

He knew that attitude – used it himself often enough – and he knew it was a lie. He closed the bay doors and started over towards her but she held up a hand to stop him, voice low and steady. “We have to go.”

Her blue skin was turning silvery pale but her stare bored into him with an urgency he couldn’t ignore. He paused, his eyes shifting between the engineer and the closed door of his quarters. The child had stopped crying. Perhaps he had imagined it in the first place. He had no idea if the grenade’s effects would have passed through the door – what the frequency charge would do to something so small as the kid…

“Mando!” she said sharply, almost bent double now. “Can you fly or not?”

He nodded. The sound of approaching feet on the airpad outside was growing louder, accompanied by shouts and blaster bolts that thudded into the ship’s sides. Somewhere, a siren blared. If they didn’t leave now, they’d have gunships after them.

“Hold onto something,” he muttered, and swung himself up onto the ladder to the cockpit. 

* * *

The Razor Crest tore away from the moon of R’Ossel Vorna and burst into the quiet hum of hyperspace as soon as it was clear of orbit. He’d punched in a random course, not caring where they headed so long as it was away – far away – from that death mine.

Once they were safe in the white lines of the slipstream he eased back into the pilot’s chair for a moment, feeling the pumping of his own blood in every cut, every bruise, every undiscovered injury. His heartbeat jumped in his throat and he stilled the shaking of his hands by squeezing them around the armrests.

That was too close. _Way_ too close.

And he had no doubt that it wouldn’t be the last time they encountered Nanse’s debt-holders. They had her puck. They had his description. His ship’s description. He’d have to check it over for tracking devices when he had a spare second. But first, there were more important things to attend to.

He dropped down the ladder, stumbling a little on the landing, and hurried over to where Nanse sat slumped against the wall. Her eyes were closed and blood soaked the whole of her left side but she was still breathing, shallow and quick. He put a palm to her cheek and turned her face towards him.

“Nanse,” he said, his modulator flattening the edge of worry in his tone.

Her eyelids fluttered but did not open. The hand she’d had clamped over her stomach lay limply at her side. He carefully peeled back the bottom edge of her shirt to inspect the wound and sucked in a slow breath in sympathy. Knives had got her first. A long, curved slice trailed from her ribs to just below her belly button. It was worse than he’d feared, and she’d lost a lot of blood already... 

He jostled her shoulder and said her name again, louder this time. She still didn’t stir. He pressed her hand back over the wound and she made a weak yelping sound, her head rolling from side to side in bleary objection.

“Put some pressure on it,” he barked, “Hold on, I’ll be back.”

He wasn’t sure if she could even hear him but then her fingers tightened into a fist around her bloody shirt and she made a weak attempt at sitting up.

He kept her in place with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Don’t. Move.”

She let out a murmur that might have been a word but was probably just an expression of pain and he left her there, crossing over to his storage racks in two strides, piling his arms with every medical supply he owned. His stash was sparse, but there was pain relief, a cauterising tool, and some Bacta dressings. He frowned. It still might not be enough. And he didn’t know what he’d do if there was internal damage…

He paused, staring at his empty shelves, a strange idea forming in his head. He dumped the supplies at the engineer’s feet and slapped open the door to his quarters, unspeakably relieved to see the curious tilt of the child’s ears peeking up at him from beneath the blankets.

“Hey kid,” he said, a lump in his throat making it hard to talk; hard to swallow. “You okay?”

The child struggled to extricate itself from the blanket nest and he slipped his hands under its armpits, gently easing it free and holding it up for inspection. The creature let out a happy little squeal, wiggling its feet in the air. It seemed to show no ill effects of the grenade’s blast, or the trauma of the last few hours. It smiled up at him and swiped at his helmet with its little claws.

Din looked back at the child with a serious tilt to his visor. “I need your help.”

* * *

He crouched beside the engineer, the child on his knee. She’d passed out again, her skin shimmering with sweat in the low light of the cargo bay. A small pool of blood was gathering beneath her.

The Mandalorian forced his voice to stay steady as he spoke to the child in a low tone. “This is Nanse. She’s going to help us. But… she’s hurt. She needs–”

The child was already wriggling off his lap, peering at the woman with an innocent kind of concern in its dark eyes. Din let him go. Watched in wonder as the creature’s expression turned to determination and it reached out a hand to rest gently on the engineer’s stomach.

If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would never believe it. Would never stop feeling a quiet sense of awe whenever he looked at the child. Never understand why he had been deemed worthy to be tasked with such precious cargo...

The child’s eyes rolled back into its head and something in the air shifted - a quietness that seemed to draw all the oxygen out of the room. He held his breath. Nanse let out hers in a convulsive exhalation but thankfully did not wake as the wound in her abdomen slowly began to knit itself back together.

The cut must have gone deeper than he’d thought. By the time the child's power reached its limit and the creature sank down to the floor, drained and half-conscious itself, a shallow gash still remained across the engineer’s stomach. It would heal, though. And providing she hadn't lost too much blood, she would survive. He checked her pulse and was reassured to find it steady, her breathing even, and her skin no longer clammy. He made her as comfortable as he could on the bare metal floor, bunching up his cape as a pillow and covering her with a foil blanket from one of the medipacks. He would have to finish the job the traditional way, with the cauteriser and Bacta dressings and as much pain relief as he could safely administer. And hope she didn’t wake up until it was done.

He scooped up the sleeping child and settled it back in his quarters, a twist of guilt flaring in his chest as he tucked the blankets around it. He worried about the effort it took the child to do… whatever the hell it was. The only other times it had used its powers - on the mudhorn, on Karga, on Cara, on the flame trooper - it had done so of its own volition, to protect, to heal, to attack - regardless of whether its instincts had been correct. This time, he had directly asked for its help. He wasn’t entirely sure if it even understood him, or whether it had simply chosen to heal Nanse on its own, but still, he felt responsible for this particular instance and it didn’t sit right with him. it felt a little too close to whatever the empire had been trying to coax out of the child with their medical experiments, and he never wanted the child to think he intended to use its powers for his own purposes. It trusted him for reasons he did not comprehend - even after he’d turned it in - and he‘d made a promise never to break that trust again. He lingered at the door, listening to the gentle snoring of the little green creature for a moment before turning back to the cargo bay. 

The dull reverberation of hyperspace travel had a calming effect, and he could feel the adrenaline slowly eking out of his system, leaving behind a leaden exhaustion in its wake. But he couldn’t rest yet.

He had more than just the child to contend with now. 

He sat beside the engineer and gathered up his medical supplies, watching her unconscious face for signs of wakefulness or pain. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully enough - incongruously so, against the backdrop of blood that surrounded her. Another twinge of guilt twisted inside of him. Wherever he went, he seemed to bring chaos and violence with him. The covert was scattered and lost because of his actions. The child exposed to more and more danger. Nanse had almost lost her life. And all because he couldn’t look after his own armour.

He thought back to her shop - the intricate glowing clockwork that covered the walls and had taken his breath away. She may have been trapped in that terrible place but she’d managed to create something beautiful out of it. Maybe he should have left her there. All she could look forward to now was a life on the run.

Just like him. Just like the child.

He sighed. Perhaps this was The Way, but that didn’t mean he had to understand it.

He smoothed her hair away from her face and gently took off her spectacles, setting them safely aside while he got to work. Without them, she looked much younger, much less severe, and he found himself wondering exactly what she’d done to pile up so many bounties. A vision of Knives’ slit throat flashed into his head and he decided it would be a very bad idea to underestimate this quiet, unassuming engineer.

He glanced back at the sleeping child and hoped he hadn’t made a mistake bringing her on board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh this chapter was not meant to be this long but here_we_are. 
> 
> This battle has been running through my head for weeks but it still managed to come out differently to how I imagined it. I've added an extra warning for the levels of gruesome that unexpectedly arose from this section (sorry if that's not your thing) and let's just say there should be considerably amounts of hurt/comfort and conflict-addled conversation coming up. Perhaps even a small amount of fluff. Ahh who am I kidding - we finally got back to the child! There will definitely be fluff... 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed. There may be a slight delay for the next instalment as I am flip-flopping between this and another fic (or two) but feel free to kudos and comment and make suggestions to your heart's content. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and for all the lovely feedback so far!


	7. The Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief moment of calm. (Maybe?)
> 
> Din is super bad at small talk.

For a while it was quiet and still inside the Razor Crest. The child slept, Nanse remained unconscious, and the Mandalorian was glad of the temporary silence – glad to have something practical to focus on as he did the best he could cleaning and treating and binding up the engineer’s wound. The cauteriser wasn’t the most refined of methods but it was quick and effective and didn’t require any real skill, which was good, because he didn’t think he could even walk a straight line right now, let alone administer stitches.

He felt bad that she was laid out on the cold metal floor of the ship but he didn’t want to try moving her until she was conscious in case he accidentally did any more damage. She was still covered in blood and dirt and smoky grime, her blue skin shimmering beneath. He considered getting a cloth and trying to clean some of it off but that felt far too intimate an act, despite the fact that he’d been wrapping a dressing around her bare middle a few minutes before. One was medicinal; the other was… something else. Something that made him oddly uncomfortable. He shook it off. It was _unnecessary_ , that’s what it was. She could clean herself up when she woke. She wasn’t helpless and he wasn’t a nursemaid. And he couldn’t imagine appreciating someone doing the same for him if their roles were reversed. In fact, anyone who touched his armour while he was unconscious was likely to be rewarded with a punch to the face when he woke. They seemed to be similar in that way. Protective of their privacy. Their personal space. Their silence. He respected that, and was wary not to overstep any boundaries with the one person who might be able to help him.

He left her sleeping, numbed for a while at least by the last of his anaesthetic supply. She would be sore when she woke up but he got the impression she would try not to show it. _I’ll manage_ , she’d said, with a stab wound in her gut. And she’d done more than that – she’d saved his life. His jaw clenched as he remembered the hopelessness of lying there, half-paralysed, while Knives had tried to take off his helmet… No, she’d done a lot more than just save his life.

He stared down at the figure at his feet. This stranger on his ship. This strange, bounty-hunted, indentured, bomb-crafting woman. They’d only known each other a few hours, really, and already they’d exchanged a life debt. It was a strange turn of events, but stranger things had happened to him lately.

A sigh rasped through his vocoder as he looked around the cargo bay properly for the first time since they’d got back to the ship. It quite literally looked like a bomb had gone off inside, which was, in fact, pretty accurate. A burnt, smoky residue covered the walls and blood spotted the floor, ending in a smeared circle around the sleeping engineer. His weapons cache was open and half empty, its contents strewn everywhere, along with all the stuff he’d swept off the shelves in his hurry to find medical supplies. He sighed again and stretched out his aching back, leaning against the cool, reverberating wall of the cargo bay. It could wait. They would be dropping out of hyperspace soon and he had his own injuries to attend to.

He gathered up what was left of the medi-supplies and crossed stiffly to the fresher. A groan slipped out of him as started stripping off his plating, piece by piece. He kept his helmet on – didn’t want to risk a shower with a stranger on his ship – and only removed what he had to. Perhaps he was being a little paranoid – the engineer was flat out unconscious and the kid was fast asleep – but he still wasn’t used to having people on his ship who weren’t frozen in carbonite.

He made a neat pile of his shoulder pauldrons, wrist bracers, chest and back plates on a crate beside the fresher before peeling back his padding and the sweat-and-blood-soaked shirt beneath. Bare-chested and shivering slightly in the chilled air of deep space, he inspected his latest collection of injuries in the smudged mirror. An angry slice across his forearm. An electrical burn on his shoulder. A deep cut in the back of his shoulder from the throwing knife. Assorted bruises on his chest and ribs from blaster shots absorbed by his Beskar. And around his throat, a raw, inflamed incision where Strangler had garrotted him. That one hurt the most – reminding him every time he spoke, or swallowed, or even breathed too deeply. But most of all, he was just plain exhausted. Right down to the bone. As if every misfire of his armour had drained him of energy until he was nothing but an empty shell.

Slow and aching, he leaned against the sink as he went through the motions of tending his wounds. He did a much poorer job on himself than Nanse, partly because he’d used up most of his supplies on her, and partly because he was too tired to do more than the bare minimum required to avoid infection. He couldn’t quite get at the one on the back of his shoulder – too much of a stretch for his sore joints – but he mopped it clean, shrugged on a fresh shirt and hoped for the best.

Finally done, he slumped forward over the basin, mustering the strength to replace the rest of his armour. His visor glared back at him in the mirror, decidedly more scraped up than it had been that morning. He winced as he cycled through his flickering HUD menu, showing error after error message. The frequency charge had pretty much knocked out his entire system, leaving him on minimum power and basic controls. On the plus side, that meant the electrical misfires were no longer a problem. On the other hand, it meant his armour was almost entirely back to basics. A knotted tangle of doubts collected in his stomach as he slowly put himself back together, replacing the plates one by one, wondering if he’d ever be able to trust them again. He still didn’t know if he was doing the right thing. If the armourer would approve of him bringing in an outsider – a complete stranger – to work on his Beskar. If Nanse would even be able to fix it. And what he would do if she couldn’t.

His fingers lingered on the sigil on his shoulder, tracing the embossed edges, and for a moment he closed his eyes and imagined he could feel the flaring heat of the forge. The dull clank of tools on Beskar. The glow of red behind his eyelids.

He knew what the Armourer would say. That perhaps The Way had led him to the engineer. That perhaps he was meant to find her. And that it didn’t matter whether his armour worked or not. He had one task. To look after the child. Whatever it took.

Right now, that meant forcing himself to stay awake for a few more hours to get them far enough away from R’Ossel Vorna as possible. He could do that, at least. One thing at a time. And he would deal with the next problem when it inevitably arrived.

He took a breath. Straightened up. And got to work.

* * *

They only had enough fuel for one more jump.

He’d been hopping the ship in and out of hyperspace for the past few hours, dropping out just long enough to plot another random course before returning to the liminal tunnel of streaking stars. It was a clumsy way to stay off the radar, and an expensive one, but it was all he had right now. No one could track them in hyperspace, and if even _he_ didn’t know where they were going next, no one could possibly predict where they would end up when they eventually ran out of juice.

They would have to dock somewhere soon– to refuel, top up supplies, and find somewhere safe enough to lay low for a while – but until then he was grateful for a moment to breathe. There were too many people on their tail and he was tired of running. Tired, full stop. The hum of hyperspace and the darkness of the cockpit were conspiring against him and he had to fight to keep his eyes open. He was used to snatching short stretches of sleep in his pilot’s chair but he couldn’t afford to now. Not even for just a minute. Not even a second... Not even…

...

He jolted upright. A repetitive clattering was coming from the cargo bay. He knew, logically, that it could only be the child or the engineer – that there was no one else on board and no imminent danger – but he was still on his guard as he ventured down into the hold.

He found them both awake: Nanse propped up on one elbow; the child crouching a good six feet away, watching her curiously. The engineer stayed very still, studying the creature with the same serious face she’d considered the Mandalorian with when he’d first stepped into her shop. It was as if they were measuring one another up – or communicating in some way that Din couldn’t comprehend.

Neither noticed him come down the ladder and they continued their staring contest until the child leaned forward and nudged at an empty rations canister, sending it rolling across the deck to the woman opposite. It made the same resounding clattering noise that had woken him from his accidental nap. When the tin finally reached the engineer she stopped it with the flat of her palm, paused for a moment, and sent it rolling back.

Din felt a smile tug at his lips. It was a game. A very simple, very gentle game of catch.

He watched them roll it back and forth a few more times before stepping out of the shadows beneath the ladder. Nanse’s head snapped up and the child let out a little squealing greeting when it saw him, holding up the canister like a prize. The Mandalorian politely nodded his approval and the child proudly hugged the tin to its chest.

“This is your kid,” the engineer said. It wasn’t a question. She looked from the little green creature to the Beskar-suited man and back again. “Looks like you,” she added.

It took him a second to register it, deadpan as she was, and conceded the joke with a huff of air that made his vocoder crackle.

She smiled back faintly, her eyes following the child as it waddled up to Din’s boot and patted it in a possessive manner. He resisted the urge to pick the child up, watching the engineer for her reaction. But whatever she was thinking, she kept it to herself, seeming to understand his silent tension. He couldn’t help but slip into a protective stance whenever someone else came near the child. But perhaps that’s just what it felt like to be a parent.

He relaxed his guard a little, suddenly very aware of how small the cargo hold was with three people in it. How large and looming he must seem in his armour with her lying there on the floor – injured, vulnerable, and stranded in deep space with a complete stranger. He had never been very good at putting people at ease. It was usually his job to do the opposite.

There was no point asking if she was okay – the fact that she was conscious and lucid was evidence that she was at least stable, but he knew she would also be in a considerable amount of pain and no doubt suffering some sort of shock from the events of the past few hours. In light of all that, ‘how are you feeling?’ seemed woefully lacking. She would tell him if she needed assistance, or he would make a decision to step in if she seemed in need of it. There was no use in small talk. Best to keep it practical. Functional.

“Bunk’s free,” he barked, gesturing to his narrow quarters.

She blinked at him.

He cleared his throat. This was worse than small talk. “I mean… You should rest. Not… on the floor.”

She nodded slowly but didn’t move. Her eyes roved around the interior of the ship, lingering on the carbonite racks in the corner. They were empty – he hadn’t been able to take on any Guild jobs since Nevarro – but that didn’t seem to put her at ease. He guessed it wasn’t exactly a welcome sight considering the amount of bounties she had on her head.

He wanted to tell her he wouldn’t have brought her in by force if she’d refused to help him. He hoped she knew that already. He wondered if she was regretting her decision.

To fill the awkward silence, he made a perfunctory attempt at clearing up the mess on the floor, scooping up as much of the detritus as he could carry and shoving it into a small trash compactor at the back of the hold. The child followed him with tiny shuffling footsteps, methodically gathering up all the bits of rubbish that got dropped along the way. Din took them from him with careful appreciation but was met with an angry meep when he tried to take the canister. The little creature clung fiercely to the tin and babbled something that sounded suspiciously scolding at the Mandalorian.

“You’re holding onto that, huh?” Din said, lacking the energy to argue. “Alright then.”

The child gave a firm, affirmative humph and stroked the tin reassuringly.

When Din turned back, the engineer was trying to push herself upward with a series of tight wincing gasps. He tutted through his modulator and started back towards her, one gloved hand outstretched.

“Hey. You shouldn’t–” he began, but the look she shot him killed any further interjections or attempts to help.

He stopped a few respectful feet away. She wanted to do this herself. To show she wasn’t helpless. He understood, even though it was foolish. He likely would have acted the same in her situation. 

After a painstaking minute or so, she managed to get herself into a proper seated position, grunting with the effort of it but satisfied at the achievement. She slumped against the the wall and tentatively lifted the bottom of her shirt to inspect the bandages there, as if she could see through to the wound beneath.

“Not as bad as I thought it would be,” she remarked, looking up at him with a brief approving nod. He guessed it was meant to be something like a thank you.

He didn’t reply. Didn’t know how to without lying. The truth was it _had_ been as bad as she’d expected. Worse, even. If it hadn’t been for the child…

But he wasn’t about to volunteer that information. The fewer people who knew about the boy’s powers the better.

This close up, he could see she was shivering. Her skin was a paler blue than it had been in the humid underbelly of R’Ossel Vorna but her eyes were still petrol-bright.

She noticed him noticing and gave a self-conscious half shrug, wrapping her arms around herself. “Forgot how cold space is,” she said.

He suspected it was more to do with the shock than the cold but he didn’t argue the point. He dropped to one knee beside her, gathering up the makeshift pillow he’d made out of his cloak and laying it across her shoulders. She flinched a little when his fingers brushed her back and he felt that same odd twist in his stomach as before – overstepping some invisible boundary of intimacy. He retreated out of her personal space and she relaxed a little, pulling the corners of the cloak across her chest and bunching the fabric in her fists. 

She tilted her chin up towards the ceiling, as if she were listening for something, and a gave a brief smile. “Long time since I was in hyperspace.” She sounded wistful about it. And a little sad.

The low hum of the hyperstream was so familiar to him that he barely heard it any more but he tuned into it now, mirroring her. It sounded like glass, singing.

For a second he had an urge to invite her up to the cockpit to see the infinite lines of light streaming overhead, but quickly shook the idea out of his head – she could barely sit up, let alone climb a ladder, and this wasn’t a sight-seeing trip. Besides, her smile had already faded to a frown as a thought seemed to hit her like a blow. Her eyes shifted to his visor and her voice took on an edge.

“Were we followed? I… I don’t remember much after…” she trailed off, gesturing broadly at the blood that covered her clothing.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. But I can’t scan for a tracking beacon until we land.”

She winced at that, her eyes drifting back towards the child who was jabbering happily away at its pet canister as it attempted to feed the tin bites of a scavenged ration bar.

“I shouldn’t have come,” she said quietly, avoiding his eye line.

He didn’t know how to respond. This certainly hadn’t been the plan – to break her out of indentured service and go on the run with a handful of bounties after them. The plan had been to find the engineer, fix his armour, and go their separate ways. But, in his experience, things rarely went the way you meant them to. He hadn’t intended on taking on a foundling but here they were. Maybe this was The Way.

It was his turn to shrug, falling back on pragmatism. “We had a deal,” he said plainly. “You’d rather I’d left you there?”

“I’d rather you’d never turned up at all. You didn’t exactly give me a choice,” she snapped back, then instantly seemed to regret it, shrinking in on herself.

He guessed he deserved that. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened to her if she’d stayed there after all the trouble he’d stirred up. As it was, she’d barely escaped with her life.

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said, as gently as his modulator would allow.

She clearly hadn’t been expecting an apology and she outright stared at him for a moment, brow furrowed in confusion.

The child seemed to sense the shift in mood and abandoned his ration bar and his canister to toddle closer, peering out from behind the Mandalorian at the new passenger with a soft enquiring noise.

Nanse looked at even more miserable when faced with the child’s innocent concern. “They’ll come after me…”

“We’ll deal with it,” Din said firmly, but she was already shaking her head.

“You don’t know what they’re– You have a _child_ …”

He risked crossing that invisible line and rested a hand on her arm. “We will deal with it.”

She froze at the contact but she didn’t pull away. She didn’t look entirely convinced, either. That same cornered fear that had gripped hold of her beneath the airpads was threatening to take over now. She had left behind everything - pinned her hopes on a fleeting chance - and this was not the time for empty reassurances or platitudes. Right now, she needed something more than from him. Something truthful.

He took a breath and let it out again. “Look. We’re being hunted too,” he said, nodding at the child beside him. The boy let out a cheerful babble and wiggled his ears at the attention. “Well, he is,” Din amended. “I guess they just want me dead.”

She reached out a tentative hand to stroke the kid’s ear and he beamed back at her. “Him?” she echoed. “Who would–?”

“Imps,” he said flatly.

She blanched, taking in the new information with a slow nod and retracting her hand. “Well. That’s...”

”...even worse? Yeah.”

She let out a nervous laugh and immediately swallowed it. “Was that supposed to make me feel better?”   
  
“No. Just telling you how it is. We’re used to running,” he said, unconsciously pulling the child a little closer, his voice dropping to a rumble, “And I will do whatever it takes to keep us safe."

He'd meant it as a promise - perhaps aimed more at the child than the engineer - but she seemed to take it personally. As a warning, even. Her gaze hooked on the carbonite chamber once more and all at once her expression turned flat, as if she had placed a mask over her features.

"I knew you had to be pretty desperate to end up on R'Ossel Vorna," she said, in a distant kind of voice, before her eyes snapped back to him. "But while we're being honest, you should know... If you try to trade me in, I'll kill you."

Her words weren't delivered with any kind of malice or threat. Just a statement. A simple truth. But for a moment he stopped breathing. He absolutely believed her. And he respected her for it. It was a reasonable stance - almost Mandalorian in its directness. And it went without saying that he would be prepared to do the same if she risked the safety of his child.

"Fair enough," he said at last. 

She studied him with an unbroken stare for longer than was comfortable and he was grateful for the protection of his helmet. Finally, she seemed to make a decision, nodded once, and it was as if a spell had been shattered in the air between them. As if something had shifted. 

”I think I’ll take that bunk now,” she said quietly, making an abortive attempt at moving herself into a more upright position.

This time she let him help. He set the child down and slipped an arm around her back, hoisting her carefully to her feet. She clung onto his shoulder with a hiss of pain as she found her balance, misting the metal with her breath. It would have been much easier for him to scoop her legs up and carry her but he could tell how difficult it was for her to accept his assistance in the first place; how important it was for her to show him that she was still capable of standing on her own two feet - even if the evidence was against her. And so they made slow progress crossing the ten feet of floor that lay between them and Din's quarters. After a few steps the engineer could no longer mask how much it hurt, digging her fingers into his arm every time she had to put weight on her left side, and she was out of breath by the time they reached the bunk, sinking onto the narrow bedroll in relief. He pretended not to see the tears in her eyes and ducked briefly into the fresher to grab the remains of the medikit and give her a moment to collect herself. 

When he returned, she was sitting up, his tattered cloak wrapped around her, the mask back in place.

"Here," he said, passing her an analgesic syringe. "This is the last of it. We'll find somewhere to restock soon."

She was too tired to argue and accepted the dose with a tight clench of her jaw.

He stood there awkwardly for a few more moments, not sure how to end the interaction. Normally he avoided the problem by simply walking away, using the anonymity of his armour to shield him from the usual social expectations, but that particular technique was a little harder to do within the tight containment of his ship. And while he wasn't exactly known for his bedside manner, he wasn't entirely oblivious to a person's need for comfort and reassurance after experiencing trauma. It didn't feel right to just leave her like this.

Perhaps small talk really did serve a purpose after all.

"You should rest," he said. Stating the obvious.

She nodded vaguely. 

He faltered. What else was there to say? 

He waved an arm vaguely to his left. "Fresher's there if you need it," he said. Possibly the most obvious of obvious things.

She looked at him as if he were a talking blurrg.

"And..." he floundered, catching sight of her bloody shirt beneath the folds of his cape, "...clothes. There should be a spare..."

He leaned into the bunk to unlatch the storage compartment built into the wall and she instinctively flinched backwards at the invasion of her space. 

He jerked back hurriedly, knocking the back of his helmet on the door frame, and tried valiantly to gather his composure while she fought to keep a straight face.

He sighed. Well. At least it had made her (almost) smile.

"Just... take whatever you need. I'll be in the cockpit." 

He turned to go and almost tripped over the child, who was waiting patiently behind him, arms raised, wanting to be picked up. He did so, nestling the kid into the crook of his elbow and heading for the silent refuge of the cockpit. At least conversations with the child didn't require complicated navigation. The little creature was just content to chew on his wrist bracer.

He had one foot on the ladder when her voice cut through the quiet. "Mando?"

He froze in place. "Yes?"

There was a brief pause, then, in a soft whisper: "Thank you." 

He looked back over his shoulder but from here he couldn’t see her face - only parts of her. She was facing away from him, leaning against the wall of the bunk with her hands in her lap. Her palms were still smeared with dried blood - hers or Knives', he wasn't sure which. She picked at it, scrubbing roughly at the stains with trembling fingers. 

He still couldn’t get a proper read on her. One minute she was like a scared, cornered stray. The next she had the demeanour of a cold killer. He’d seen genuine fear and panic in her eyes and watched as she slit a man’s throat. He didn’t know if he should protect her or be afraid of her. But last thing he’d expected was thanks.

He couldn't muster a reply but it didn't seem to matter. She lifted one bloody hand up to the control panel and the door to the bunk slid shut with a smart snap. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing during a pandemic is hard... But having this weird little scene bouncing around my head has been a nice escape the last few weeks. Hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> (Awkward Din is the best Din.)


	8. The Device

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din searches for a tracking device. Nanse does what she does best. The child still loves his canister.

“Hey, get back from there!”

Din’s stomach lurched as he scooped up the child, mere inches from the sheer drop of the cliff edge, and held him tight to his chestplate.

It was the fourth – or maybe fifth – time he’d had to grab him, and the Mandalorian was starting to suspect that landing the ship in the ravine had been a stupid idea. Either that or the kid had a set of secret wings tucked under that little gown...

The boy had been ecstatic to be out in the open air after being cooped up in the ship for so long and had tumbled down the ramp the moment it had opened – only to be initially disappointed to find himself on a small ridge jutting out of the side of a canyon that stretched to the horizon in both directions. The child’s frustration didn’t last long, however, as he soon discovered how much fun it was to turn himself into a living game of fetch: the closer he got to the ledge, the more excited his _buir_ became, chasing after him and sweeping him high into the air. It was an excellent game, and could be played over and over and over again.

Din was not quite so enamoured with the situation. “…trying to give me a heart attack…” he muttered to himself, holding the child close as he peered over the edge. A few dislodged pebbles bounced off the jagged edges of the cliff face, splitting into smaller pieces with every impact. It was a _long_ way down.

The boy let out a happy noise and flapped his arms at the view.

“No! Dangerous,” Din said, pointing a finger at the crevasse, then gently jabbing the child in the chest to reinforce his words. “Stay. Away. From. The edge.”

The creature looked earnestly at him for a moment before grabbing hold of his finger and trying to gnaw on it.

Din sighed, extricated his finger from the maw of tiny teeth and set the child down on the ramp of the ship once more, attempting his most authoritative tone: “Stay there.”

The kid’s wide eyes stared up him with the most innocent of expressions as he took a single step forward, watching curiously to see how his _buir_ would react. When the Mandalorian did nothing more than cross his arms, the foundling took another nonchalant step.

Din’s helmet tilted just a degree lower, staring at the kid with all the intensity he could muster through the T in his visor. “Don’t you dare...”

The stand-off lasted a good half a minute, both of them motionless and silent – long enough that Din was almost convinced that the boy might actually listen to him this time - before the kid made a sudden shuffling sprint for the edge.

This time, Din was ready, snatching up a fistful of the child’s robe and lifting him a few feet off the ground, leaving his little feet running in mid-air. The kid made a very unimpressed noise, furiously attempting to wriggle free for a few moments, then gave up and hung dejectedly from the Mandalorian’s grip like a coat on a hook.

“Want me to watch him?” came a voice from the hatch, and Din looked up to see Nanse leaning against the doorframe, not even trying to hide her smirk.

The Mandalorian carefully placed the child back onto the ramp where it sat down in a huff, blocked from further escape by the looming armoured figure before him. The engineer eased herself down beside the child, still a little stiff in her movements, and began gathering up a handful of red rocks from the sandy ground and making a teetering tower with them on the floor of the ship. Din watched in quiet fascination as she pointedly ignored the sulking creature, which only made her actions more intriguing. She managed to balance five rocks before the child scooted closer to see, unable to resist the new game and letting out a little squeak of excitement as he promptly knocked the stack over. 

Nanse glanced up at Din with a brief smile and patiently began a new tower without a word. The kid was practically in her lap now, babbling contentedly to himself as he bashed two rocks together.

“Thank you,” Din sighed. He had forgotten what life was like without a small child in it; what it was like to have silence and solitude and not have to worry about a small creature’s welfare every minute of every day. He wasn’t sure when he’d last had a full night’s sleep. He’d caught a few more micro naps during their final hyperspace jump but it was hardly enough to counteract the battering he’d taken on R’Ossel Vorna, and chasing around after the little one was almost enough to bring him to his knees.

There was a reason the tribe took a communal approach to raising children and foundlings, he realised - the adults taking turns to teach and reprimand and supervise the younglings. Giving them all the knowledge and affection and guidance of a hundred surrogate parents. That was how it ought to be. But the thought made his heart ache, and he pushed it out of his head.

The child only had him, for better or for worse. Even if he had no idea what he was doing. Even if he messed up. He was trying his best. Still. It was good to have some help for a change.

He watched the engineer for a moment. She was murmuring soft encouragement to the child as he painstakingly balanced one rock on top of another. She looked like a different person than the night before. At some point during hyperspace she must have made it to the fresher, because she was no longer covered in blood, and was wearing one of his spare undershirts. It was big on her, but she’d tucked it into her pants, cinched it in with her waistcoat and rolled up the sleeves. A fresh bruise had blossomed on her left cheek, dark purple against the blue - another injury from their escape, he surmised. He was discovering new bruises on an hourly basis, and every movement had turned into an ache. R'Ossel Vorna had been too close a call by far... 

On that thought, he snapped himself back into action. He’d landed here for a reason, and they’d wasted enough time already. He picked up the scanner he’d dropped the last time he’d had to go rescue the child from the cliff edge and ducked under the Crest’s engines, running the humming tool over the hull in a slow, methodical pattern. There was no point continuing their random hopping journey through hyperspace if Nanse’s ‘employers’ had installed a tracking device somewhere on the ship. It would have been far quicker and easier to scan using his helmet’s HUD, of course, but he was still working with basic functionality, so the handheld version would have to do.

He did a thorough sweep of the stern but came up empty. For some reason it wasn’t reassuring. He doubted very much that the Vornian’s would have let them go so easily if they hadn’t tampered with the ship in some way. He walked a slow perimeter around the nose of the Crest, frowning at the blank screen of the scanner in suspicion. When he made it back to the ramp, the engineer was watching him with a frown of her own.

“Where are we?” she said, squinting into the rust-coloured distance. Every direction looked the same.

“Old empire outpost,” he replied.

Her eyes snapped up to his visor in alarm.

“Abandoned,” he clarified. “Got decimated by the rebels a couple of years ago. It’s far enough out that they didn’t bother rebuilding. Plenty of other uninhabited rocks to monopolise…” The bitterness in his voice managed to make it through the vocoder. No matter where you went, you could guarantee to find traces of the Empire - and the destruction they left in their wake.

Nanse nodded slowly but her eyes kept flitting up to the sky, as if she half expected a star destroyer to break through the atmosphere.

“There’s a refuelling station a few hundred klicks north of here,” he added. They were few and far between on the outer rim, but the further out you went, the fewer questions were asked. Finding the credits for enough fuel to keep them limping along was another issue, but that was a challenge for later.

Nanse eyed the scanner in his hands. “You think they’re tracking us?”

He shrugged with one aching shoulder. “They didn’t seem all that happy about letting either of us go.”

She flinched a little at that, but didn’t offer up any new information as to why that might be, and he was too preoccupied with the scanner to push the conversation. He headed back beneath the ship to check the midsection, tracing a glove over the charred metal where the engineer’s electrical charge had detonated, and began a sweep of the undercarriage.

Ten minutes later he was almost done – the scanner still showing no sign of foreign objects – and he was half-considering strapping on the Phoenix to check the roof when a faint blip registered on the screen. He jerked to a stop, almost cracking his helmet on the underside of the ship, and carefully retraced his steps until he zeroed in on the reading. It was faint, but there was definitely _something_ on the Crest that shouldn’t be there. He whacked the scanner’s sensitivity up to maximum and followed the bleeping until its pitch and frequency began to rise, feeling his heartrate rise with it. The readout led him to the starboard side, beneath the engine, and there, tucked deep within the landing gear, was a tiny flashing light - not unlike the one he'd seen on the side of a certain flash grenade...

* * *

“This one of yours?” he barked, tossing the tracking device onto the sand at the engineer’s feet.

She shot a distasteful look back at him, and he wasn’t sure if she was more offended by the craftsmanship or the implied accusation. He knew his anger was probably misplaced, but he’d never seen a tracker so small and carefully hidden before, and he only knew one person who could make such a thing.

“No,” she said calmly but coolly.

He matched her gaze with a creeping realisation that he had no idea whether or not she was lying. She was as hard to read as if she had her own helmet on.

“No,” he echoed quietly, “You only build bombs and lockbreakers.”

Her expression hardened. “Amongst other things.”

“But you recognise it.”

This, she acquiesced with a tiny nod.

His hatred for R’Ossel Vorna shot up a notch. He was sick of people tampering with his stuff. His armour. His ship. His life. His _child._ He was sick of being hunted. And now the Vornians were tracking him, too. Had been this whole time. And he had no way of knowing how close they were; how much danger he’d put them all in by even landing here.

"We're leaving," he snapped, raising his boot to stamp on the device. But before he could do so, the engineer darted to her feet, wincing at the movement – a strangled, “Wait!” escaping her throat. The child startled beside her, knocking his pile of rocks across the loading bay.

Suspicion ran through Din's blood like ice. He lowered his boot to the sand and stared at her.

“You _want_ them to find us?”

She held up her hands as if he were aiming a blaster at her. “If you destroy it, the last coordinates they receive will be here,” she said slowly.

He nodded. That much was obvious.

She began a careful approach, her eyes fixed on the T in his visor, her voice low and gentle, like she was trying to reassure a spooked animal. “So… first we have to refuel. Plot a new course. You could do with some sleep. And I still need to look at that armour. Right?”

Another nod. He watched her bend down and pluck the device from the sand, hold it up to the light and peer through her zoom lenses at it.

“So why rush?” she said, with a trace of a smile. “Why let them follow our trail when we could send them half way across the galaxy instead? What if we keep them looking in the _wrong place_?”

He cocked his head, not fully understanding. Her smile widened.

“If the trail stops here, they’ll know we’ve found the tracker," she said, picking up speed. "They’ll start asking questions. At your refuelling station. At every feasible destination from here, given your ship’s capacity.” She nodded at the Razor Crest. “Not exactly a common model. And a Mandalorian is always a rare sight. Worth a little gossip…” Her smile faded a little as she looked down at the child. “Even if we destroy it, they’ll find us eventually.”

He knew she was right. The Empire’s bounty hunters were working along similar lines. It wasn’t as if he could hide his Beskar, and someone _always_ talked…

“What are you proposing?” he said, forcing his voice to stay even.

She raised the tracker up to his eye level. “Do you trust me?”

He paused too long not to be honest about it. “I don’t know.” 

If she was offended, she didn’t miss a beat. “You really think I _want_ them to find me?”

It would be an elaborate scheme, by anyone's standards. And there was no way she could have faked the fear in her eyes back at the airpads. “No,” he sighed. 

She waved the tracker towards the Crest. “I can hook this up to your navi-computer. Programme in whatever coordinates we like. Set it to change every few days. Send them on an endless chase to nowhere.”

There was a light in her eyes that was hard to ignore. Like she had suddenly dropped the mask and come to life. That same intensity she’d had when she’d been working on his armour. It was strangely contagious.

“You can... do that?” he said.

She scoffed. “With this piece of scrap? I can send them to Alderaan.”

* * *

He sat in the co-pilot’s chair with the child on his lap and watched her hands fly across the dashboard controls, trying not to wince when she reached beneath the panel and began uncoupling wires.

“You’ve done this before, right?” he asked nervously.

She didn’t turn to look at him but her slight pause told him everything he needed to know. “It’ll work,” she said firmly.

He bit back a response. She _did_ seem to know her way around the cockpit, and as far as he could tell everything was still working normally. She’d connected the tracker to the Crest’s navigation system and star charts were flickering through the holoscreen faster than he could make sense of.

“I thought you said you didn’t know how to fly,” he said, a little perturbed at her familiarity with the controls.

This time she did glance over her shoulder, if only to give him a withering look.

“I don’t. But if it runs on a circuit I can read it.”

He didn’t have a reply for that. The child looked up at him and echoed the engineer’s flat tone with a nonsense burble.

“Don’t you start,” Din muttered.

Nanse made a clicking noise with her tongue, cycled through another couple of switches, and, with a dying drone, all the power went out.

For a second, his chest tightened in panic. Without his HUD he had no night vision, and all he could do was grip hold of the child with one hand and loosen his blaster in its holster with the other. He didn’t know exactly what he was planning on shooting at, and when the lights stuttered back on a moment later, the engineer was staring at him in amusement.

“What did you do?” he said, easing his shoulders back down from around his ears.

She gestured to the holoscreen, which was now focusing in on a set of coordinates several parsecs away. “Had to reset the system to sync it with the tracker. They now think we're heading to… Yolta-7,” she said, reading off the data output.

She was not even attempting to disguise how smug she was. And if he was honest, he didn’t really blame her. But he needed to see for himself. He set the child down in the chair and hunched over the screen, marvelling quietly at the fact that she’d created an entirely separate database to manage and organise their falsified journeys. It was all working exactly as she said it would. He checked over the rest of his controls and ran the start-up sequence, but everything seemed to be functioning as usual.

“Do you trust me now?” she said, almost so quietly he didn’t hear her, even though she was standing right beside him.

He angled his helmet to look sideways at her and gave a single nod. He might not trust her implicitly – not yet – but this was a good start.

* * *

A few hours later they docked at the refuelling station and Din left the child in Nanse’s care once again as he ventured out to haggle with the Kubaz on duty who spoke through a vocoder not unlike his own in a dull, bored monotone. Prices were high out here on the outer rim – scarcity driving up the cost of fuel for unlucky travellers who found themselves adrift – and the Kubaz was not in the mood to discuss lines of credit. The long-nosed fuel attendant tapped the sign on the front of her booth that said ‘payment in full’ and made a long series of clicks and whistles that Din could only assume was some sort of insult.

He glanced back at the ship with a sinking feeling in his gut. Emptying the last of his credit accounts would only half-fill the Crest’s tanks, which wouldn’t realistically get them more than a few more jumps away – and then there was food and medical supplies to pay for, too. Nanse had been putting on a brave face, but as the afternoon wore on he could tell her side had been hurting worse and worse. His own injuries were burning beneath their dressings too – raw and swollen without proper attention - and he'd have given anything for a little Bacta right now. But getting out of here had to be the priority, with or without the engineer’s clever little diversion trick. And once again, he foisted future worries onto future-Din. _The Way_ would show them how to proceed. That was one thing he had to trust in.

“Fine,” he grunted, shoving his credit chits into the reader and watching the counter drain his accounts to zero. The Kubaz made an affirmative noise and waved over a couple of droids to load up the fuel cells. The Mandalorian swallowed his knee-jerk complaint and let them do their job. He was too tired to argue.

Back on board, he found Nanse heating up a couple of meal trays while the child practised stacking up rocks (and knocking them down again) on the bunk.

“All set?” she asked, passing him a steaming tray of nondescript brown ration cubes.

He nodded. Not wanting to go into the specifics of how precarious their escape plan was with no credits, no job, no safe haven, and two sets of murderous enemies on their trail.

Right now all he wanted to do was lock himself in the cockpit, choke down his plate of tasteless food, and pass out for a few hours. Nanse seemed to sense whatever shut-off vibes he was giving out, and retreated to the bunk, luring the child over with a ration cube skewered on a fork. She jerked her chin at the ladder. “Go eat. I’ll watch him for a while.”

He let out a sigh of gratitude, took a few steps towards the cockpit, then stopped abruptly.

“Thank you,” he said, without turning around. 

He wasn’t used to this. People. On his ship. People – helping him. And whatever it was about the engineer that made him completely lose the ability to converse properly. He wasn’t exactly a conversationalist but he didn’t seem to have this problem with other people. He never had trouble speaking his mind to Greef, or Cara, or - he had to take a breath to let in the memory - Kuill. It wasn’t that he didn’t care what they thought of him but he didn’t feel the need to weigh each word before he said it. But Nanse… it was as if she could see right through his visor. It was… unsettling. And oddly comforting. It was almost like being back in the covert, where you forgot you were even wearing a helmet, because you were surrounded by people who _knew_ you.

He forced himself to look back at her, sitting there in his oversized shirt, feeding his child, fixing his ship, fixing _him_ , without asking for anything in return. “For all of it,” he added.

Now it was her turn to look unsettled. She tried a faltering smile. “You’re welcome.”

The awkward silence that followed was broken by the child dropping several cubes of rations into his canister with a moist plop.

Din shook his head and turned back to the ladder.

“So, Captain. Where’re we headed?” Nanse asked, just before he disappeared into the cockpit.

He looked up at the holoscreen, still tracking their deceptive course across the galaxy. “As far away from Yolta-7 as we can get.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has taken me a stupidly long time to write and I'll probably sneak back in and edit it some more at some point but for now it's a thing, okay? Din still has no idea what to make of Nanse and frankly neither should you. (I do though. I know ALL her secrets, mwahaha...)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, anywho. 
> 
> And oh my goshhhhh, when are we ACTUALLY gonna get around to Nanse actually fixing his armour? Maybe next chapter? Unless something else goes wrong. I mean, what else *could* go wrong...? (Lots of things. Mwaha.)


	9. The Message

He watched the tracking data tick over on the holoscreen – the lights on the dashboard were the only illumination in the dim cockpit. The new addition to his dashboard unnerved him, as much as he admitted it was necessary to keep their enemies off their tail. A constant reminder that they were being hunted. Twice over.

He shifted in his seat, unable to get comfortable enough to sleep. Unable to get comfortable, period. As if he could still feel the lingering grime and heat of R’Ossel Vorna beneath his armour. As if his armour weighed heavier, somehow, in its uselessness. Even breathing seemed more difficult without the full function of the filtration system.

Logically, he knew he could take his helmet off, if only for a few minutes, in the privacy of the cockpit. It would be a relief to breathe freely, to feel air on his skin, to rest his head back against the chair without the bulk of his Beskar in the way. But he also knew he wouldn’t risk it. Not with an _aruetii_ on board.

Besides, if he wasn’t able to sleep he might as well do something useful. And he’d need his helmet for that.

He leaned forward over the dash and brought the ship’s comms to life with a few swipes of his fingers, pausing for a moment over the ‘record’ button as he tried to muster his thoughts. He wasn’t used to asking for help and he didn’t like doing it, but he was too tired to let his pride stop him.

He closed his eyes and sought out a phrase his Alor had told him more than once – usually when he’d turned up at the forge requiring repairs after a defeat. He knew he could be stubborn. Always trying to prove himself. Frustrated and furious with every failure. And she would consider him with her usual calm, helmet tilted just so, and ask why he thought he had to do everything alone. _Asking for help is not a sign of weakness_ , she would say. _It is a sign you have surrounded yourself with strength._

He sighed. He could do with a little extra strength right about now.

He sent two messages out into the dark. One to Greef and one to Cara. It would take a while to get a reply from either of them this far out – or from wherever the hell Cara had gotten to – but it was all he could think to do. He needed credits. Needed somewhere to lay low. Needed someone he could trust.

The flickering light of the tracker screen caught his eye once more and a twist of uncertainty spiralled into nausea. He wanted to trust in the engineer. Wanted to believe they were safe, at least for a while. But he’d been running for long enough to know that ‘for a while’ never lasted long enough. And if their enemies caught up with them, he wasn't sure he was in any condition to keep any of them safe. 

* * *

When he came back down, the child was fast asleep on the bunk, curled up around his beloved canister, and Nanse was in the fresher, scrubbing at her bloodstained shirt without much success. She looked up as he appeared in the doorway. Looked a little embarrassed when she caught him staring.

“I… didn’t bring any other clothes,” she mumbled.

He nodded, mentally adding extra clothing to his growing shopping list of things they couldn’t afford. He got the impression she didn’t like favours. Didn’t like owing anyone anything. He could understand why, with all the bounties on her head. When your entire life had become a transaction, even a borrowed shirt could feel like a burden.

He reached past her to a shelf above the fresher door and she shrank back from him a little, but this time it seemed more to do with the close quarters of the room than fear. Still, he moved slowly and deliberately, taking down a bottle of cleaning fluid and handing it to her.

“This’ll get bloodstains out in an hour," he said. "Just leave it to soak."

She took the bottle with a curious look. “You do a lot of bloodstained laundry?”

His laugh came out as a grunt. His own bloody shirt still lay crumpled up in the corner where he’d left it, and he scooped it up and added it to the basin. This seemed to answer her question and she poured a dose of the cleaner into the water and swirled it around.

He noticed she still favoured her right side, her left arm tucked tight against her ribs to shield the wound beneath, her movements stilted and cautious.

“How is it?” he asked, jutting his chin towards the injury.

She shrugged, unconsciously straightening up a little as if to hide it. “Fine.”

It wasn’t particularly convincing. She looked wrung out and silvery pale.

“We’ll pick up some more medical supplies when we land,” he said.

“It’s _fine_ ,” she said shortly.

He was familiar enough with the ‘show no weakness’ school of thought and knew it wasn’t worth pushing. His vocoder flattened his already deadpan response. “Uh huh.”

Her lips tightened a little in irritation and she poked at the bloody fabric in the basin. “What about you?”

He stopped himself replying with an echo of Nanse’s ‘ _fine’_ and sighed instead. The words of his Alor rang in his head.

_Asking for help is not a sign of weakness…_

“Not great,” he said plainly. “I’m… concerned. That I won’t be able to protect you… protect _him_ ,” he added, nodding at the sleeping child, “without my armour.”

Her eyes flitted discerningly across his Beskar. “Well. It’s what you hired me for, right?” she said, her sardonic tone countered by her smile.

He wasn’t even sure if their original deal still held up, given that he’d accidentally gotten her into a heap of extra trouble and almost killed for her efforts, but he nodded slowly. “Right.”

She nodded back, a silent decision, and pushed past him to the hold, throwing open the tool drawers beneath his weapons cache with a clatter. She sorted through the contents, tossing aside anything that wasn’t up to her high standard and making decidedly unimpressed noises about the tools she deemed passable.

He watched her from the fresher doorway, not daring to intervene or complain about her treatment of his stuff.

Without looking over her shoulder, she pointed at the crates stacked against the opposite wall. “Sit,” she ordered.

He decided it was better not to argue and took a seat, remaining motionless as she stalked a slow circle around him, appraising his armour from every angle.

After a long, frowning look, she snapped her fingers at his wrist bracers. “Off.”

He hesitated just a moment before unclipping the panels and passing them to her. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in her ability to fix his armour, but the more he learned about her abilities – the bombs, the lockbreaker, the tracker – the more he wondered if he ought to be giving her access to the inner secrets of Mandalorian armour.

 _If it runs on a circuit I can read it_ , she’d said, back in the cockpit, and he believed her. Besides, what other choice did he have?

She sat on the crate beside him and bent double over the bracers in her lap, the zoom lenses in her spectacles adjusting with a soft zipping sound when she pressed a finger to the side of her head.

“Careful-” he blurted, as her fingers traced over the controls, suddenly aware of the sheer amount of weaponry she held in her hands, but was silenced with a cold blink.

Without a word, she stripped the bracers down to pieces, uncoupling the flamethrower, the grappling line, and the Whistling Birds with the utmost care and proficiency. The latter she lingered on a little longer. He’d run out of ammo for the Whistling Birds after that last, almost fateful misfire, but she studied it closest of all, making a curious ticking noise with her tongue. He couldn’t help but feel as if she was scrutinising him. His Beskar was a part of him, and his skin crawled at being separated from it. At being taken apart like this. His gloved hands gripped his knees until the leather creaked.

Once the bracers had been gutted and laid out in neat rows on the crate beside her, Nanse reached for the fastenings to his chest plate and he jerked backwards involuntarily. She froze, hands hovering at his shoulder straps.

“May I?” she said quietly, with just the edge of amusement in it.

He grumbled an affirmation but did the unbuckling himself – a small act of autonomy. She took the chest plate from him and laid it next to the other parts before immediately starting on his back piece. This time he let her with a defeated sigh. He was too stiff and aching to twist and reach over his shoulder for the fastenings, and she didn’t seem in a mood to be argued with.

This _is_ what he’d hired her for, after all. He needed his armour to function. He was incomplete without it.

He’d knelt before the altar of the Alor like this, countless times, watching the Armourer repair or replace panels, upgrade his weaponry, and adjust his controls, but this was different. There was no ceremony. No sacred forge. Just the cold deck of his ship and the dull hum of hyperspace. It just felt... empty.

“Any more shocks?” she asked, moving on to his pauldrons. He shook his head but his reply was cut off by a hiss of pain as she wiggled her fingers beneath the straps on his right shoulder and the wound there flared with scything heat. She jolted at his reaction and withdrew her hands, staring in surprise at the blood on her fingertips.

“It’s fine,” he grimaced, reaching up to unclip the pauldron with a low growl of pain.

“Uh huh,” she echoed flatly.

Without the pressure of the plating, he could feel the injury on his shoulder was swollen and hot, throbbing in time with his pulse. Infected, maybe. No wonder he’d felt so exhausted since R’Ossel Vorna. He tossed the pauldron down beside the rest of his armour, angry at himself for not taking the time to clean it properly. More medicine. More credits…

Nanse watched him for a moment more before tutting her tongue and heading to the fresher for a wet cloth. “Lean forward,” she snapped. More orders.

He sighed and obeyed, resting his forearms on his thighs and letting his head hang as she gently pulled aside the neck of his undershirt to inspect the wound. He felt her press the cloth against the inflamed skin and a gravelled moan rustled through his vocoder as she cleaned around the cut.

Now it was her turn to hiss, drawing back and staring at him with a stern, almost disapproving expression on her face.

“What did this?” she demanded.

He shrugged with his good shoulder, thinking back to that first alley fight in the city. The son-of-a-bitch who got him in the back with that little triangular projectile.

“Throwing knife,” he said. “Your friend with the bad teeth.”

She balked at the mention of Knives. Much of the blood soaking off her shirt in the fresher was his. From slitting the man’s throat.

She made a triangle shape with her fingers and thumbs. “Small? Like this?”

He nodded slowly, unsettled at the accuracy of her guess.

Her frowned deepened and she yanked at the collar of his shirt, more urgently this time, pressing her palm against the back of his neck.

“Are you feverish?” she asked, and he began to shake his head but now that she mentioned it… He’d never quite recovered from the heat and humidity of R’Ossel Vorna. He’d put it down to the effort of battle and then the lack of climate control in his broken armour, but he was still running a little hotter than usual. And the exhaustion hadn’t abated at all…

“Mando?” She gave his arm a little nudge and he realised he hadn’t replied.

“No,” he stuttered. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

She tutted again and held the cloth against the cut with a firmness that made his teeth grind together.

“Dizzy? Sick? Weak?”

_All of the above._

He didn’t like the way this questioning was going. A layer of cold dread crept across his skin – which was, now that he thought about it, feeling distinctly clammy. A flash of Knives’ jagged teeth crossed his vision and a sudden realisation matched up with Nanse’s grim expression.

“Poison,” he said. It wasn’t a question. She nodded anyway and sat down heavily on the crate beside him.

“How bad?” he asked her, after a moment of quiet in which his gaze drifted magnetically towards the sleeping child. He didn’t have the liberty to be injured, or poisoned, or… worse. He needed to be able to fight. To protect the child. He needed his armour back. He needed to be strong.

When Nanse replied her voice was tight and low. “Pretty bad.”

He turned to face her, waiting until she met his visor’s eye line. “How bad?” he repeated.

She swallowed thickly, unconsciously fiddling with the tools on her belt. “It’s called Galkah," she said, in a stilted voice. "It's a Vornian… delicacy. If prepared correctly, it’s the most expensive drink you can buy. If prepared… differently, it’s poisonous.”

“People _drink_ it?”

“It’s a status symbol. Or a way to show trust between rivals. You serve Galkah as a sign that you’ve chosen _not_ to murder one another. Except when you ‘accidentally’ give them the wrong stuff…” She paused for a moment, struggling to find the words, before letting them out in a rush. “If you’d drunk it, you’d be dead by now.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “So that’s the good news?”

She grimaced. “The gangs started using it on their throwing blades a while ago. An easy way to get to someone in a crowd, or from a distance. One little cut and…”

“And?” he repeated, trying to keep his voice even. He could hear the blood rushing in his veins, like an ocean roar – spreading the poison deeper with every heartbeat. Was this it? One little cut? And how long did he have to get the child to some sort of safety before…

“There’s an antidote,” she said quickly. “But– It’s expensive.”

“Of course it is,” he muttered, pushing himself to his feet with a grunt of effort. _Isn't everything?_

She was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t decipher. Pity? Sadness? Or just practical concern that her only chance at freedom was a ticking time bomb?

“How long do I have?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “A few days, maybe?”

He nodded once and started gathering up his armour but she stopped him with a hand on his forearm.

“Leave it. At least… let me work on it until we land.”

And now he thought there was a measure of guilt in her tone. Or some kind of urgency, at least. He still couldn’t read her. He was swaying on his feet and decided he didn’t have time to dwell on it. Whether she was helping him out of genuine sympathy or for her own benefit, it didn’t matter. He needed to set a new course. Somewhere with a healer. Somewhere close.

_A few days…_

He turned his back on her. Crossed the hold to his bunk where the child lay snoring softly. Laid one gloved hand on the blankets. Felt the gentle rise and fall of breath.

And prayed.

* * *

He didn’t know if it was the simple fact of knowing he’d been poisoned, or if the effects getting worse, but every step felt heavy as stone while his head seemed to float, disconnected from his body.

Nanse had done what little she could with the tools and equipment to hand, patching up some of the burnout damage inside his armour, but the internal systems were still fried. He put it back on anyway, and tried to ignore the persistent ache of his shoulder beneath the plating. He didn’t need it fully functioning. He just needed it to get him to a medic before it was too late.

He took a chance on a nearby planet that seemed to have a thriving trade hub and no clear ties with the Empire – he couldn’t exactly afford to be picky but he was still wary enough not to put them in more danger than necessary.

“Cappa-Zero-Nine…” Nanse’s voice made him jump as she read the navi-screen over his shoulder. He hadn’t heard her come up to the cockpit. The haze in his head was making it difficult to focus.

“Kid’s awake,” she said, eyeing him carefully. “Want me to bring him up?”

“No, we’ll be there soon.” The bulk of the blue-grey planet loomed ahead and they both stared out at it for a moment.

“You’ve been there before?”

“No. You?”

She shook her head. Then, after a pause. “Is it safe?”

He gave a short, dry laugh. “Is anywhere?”

She didn’t reply but leaned on the back of his chair and scrutinised the info on the screen. “Should be a healer there, at least. And somewhere to get supplies and parts,” she added, gesturing to his helmet. “I still need to take a look inside there to figure out why you’ve been shorting out.”

He sighed, feeling a prickle of dread creep across his shoulderblades at the thought of letting anyone look inside his helmet. “One thing at a time, huh?”

Anyway, the problems with his armour might end up moot if he couldn’t find – or afford – an antidote. Still, he was grateful she was still thinking about repairs. If he was her, faced with a bodyguard who potentially had days to live, he’d be considering cutting loose the moment the ship touched down. Or maybe it was a bluff so as not to arouse suspicion. He didn’t much care. He wasn’t about to stop her if she wanted to split. He didn’t have the energy to try.

He considered saying it out loud – to give her the option to leave, break their deal, no hard feelings – when a flashing light on the dash caught his eye.

A message.

Hope ignited in his chest and his fingers twitched, itching to activate the hologram but aware of her lingering presence behind him.

The curvature of the planet was quickly filling up the viewport and he nodded at it. “Should be landing soon,” he said, and she seemed to take the hint, retreating back down the ladder without a word.

The moment she was gone he slammed the comms button with the flat of his palm and Greef’s figure flickered to life, hovering above the dashboard.

“Mando!” Greef Karga’s rich voice rumbled through the speaker.

Din had been hoping for Cara, but he wasn’t about to complain, especially given the fast response.

“Sorry to hear about your… money troubles,” Greef said. He didn’t sound all that sorry, but the guy was hardly a paragon of charity.

Din had kept his own message brief and to the point. He needed credits. A job. Something to tide them over while they found somewhere safe to hide out. And if there was anyone in the galaxy who knew how to make a quick buck, it was the man standing in hologram form before him. But as the message continued, his hopes quickly began to sink. 

“I’m… having a little trouble myself,” Greef admitted, glancing over his shoulder as if he were checking no one was eavesdropping his message. “There’s talk of Empire activity in the sector. And the Guild has been tightening their regulations, lately. I don’t think it’s in either of our interests to offer you any ‘official’ work right now. Not unless you want to risk having your location revealed...”

Din slumped back in his chair. No quick buck, then.

“But…” Greef added with a hint of a sly smile, pausing dramatically for effect.

Din rolled his eyes. “Spit it out, Karga,” he muttered to himself.

“That bounty I gave you before…?” Greef said, sending a meaningful look through the holoscreen, “She’s worth a considerable reward. I could… arrange a carbonite drop-off if you were successful in your mission.”

Din saved the tirade he would have growled at the man, given that the hologram could neither hear him nor respond. He was not about to hand Nanse in. She wasn’t his bounty and they had their own deal. A blood pact, even. He felt guilty even listening to the suggestion. Guilty, because a tiny part of him had already considered it.

And when Greef spoke next, it was as if he’d read the Mandalorian’s thoughts. “Think about it, Mando. If you don’t claim it, someone else will. Lot of pucks on that girl’s head… I’ll be waiting for your call.”

The Guild agent ended his speech with a nod and a wink, and Din shut the message off with a slam of his fist on the console.

Like an echo, a clattering sounded from the hold, just below the ladder, and his head snapped around, startled. A few moments later the sound of the child’s babbling drifted up through the doorway, echoey in the metallic space and he forced himself to breathe long and slow.

He was getting jittery. Shivery, from the fever taking hold. He counted his breaths and stilled the panic threatening to rise. 

_Focus._

The light from the planet’s atmosphere cast the cockpit in a blue glow and the pull of its gravity sent a thrumming vibration through the ship. He repositioned his chair and concentrated on setting the landing sequence.

 _Focus. Get the Crest on the ground._ _One step at a time._

A morbid thought crossed his mind – that this might be the very last time he ever flew his ship. The first of a string of lasts until his own blood betrayed him…

He tightened his grip on the controls. No. This was not how it ended. He had a job to do. A child to protect. He would find the antidote. Find a way to pay for it.

He would try, at least. Try or fail. There was no other option.

And if he failed? Well. It would be the Way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _aruetii_ = outsider, non-Mandalorian
> 
> Uhh, so I might have accidentally made things much, much worse for Din. Sorry about that. I'm sure he and Nanse will figure out a way to fix it. I'm pretty sure nothing else terrible will go wrong along the way... Whump. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the chapter. And I hope you'll join me in a group scream because: SERIES TWO IS COMING IN OCTOBERRRRRRR! Gahhhhhhhhhh!


	10. The Medic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Din very much does not enjoy shopping.

The approach to Cappa-09 was darkened by cloud cover and relentless rain. According to the navi-computer it was mid-morning, but it would have been impossible to tell otherwise, under the gloom of the weather. The grey skies matched Din’s mood, at least.

He flexed his aching shoulder and eased himself out of the pilot’s chair, teetering slightly as his balance wavered within the fog of the fever. For once he was glad his HUD had shorted out with the damage to his armour. At least he didn’t have to look at a constant readout of his declining condition. At least this way he could envelop himself in denial and try to ignore his symptoms through sheer stubbornness. That, at least, he was good at.

He glared out at the lights in the distance. Whatever this place was, it was his only shot at a cure. He tried to think of it as any other job. Limited timeframe. High stakes mark. Focus on the mission. Push everything else out of your head until it’s done. Get in, get out. No complications.

He faltered on the last point, glancing back at the ladder that led to the bay. No complications meant going in alone. And he was not looking forward to having that particular conversation.

* * *

He knew even before he spoke that it wouldn’t go over well. Nanse already had her stuff together and was waiting at the bay door by the time he made it down from the cockpit. The cape he’d lent her as a blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, held down by the criss-crossed straps of her bag and weapon.

He took a breath. Kept his voice level. “I need you to stay here. With the child.”

It wasn’t an order. It was a request. But she reacted as if it was an insult, crossing her arms and looking him up and down with a thoroughly unimpressed glare. Despite standing at least a head taller than her he found himself feeling like a foundling, and unconsciously stood a little straighter under her scrutiny. The sound of driving rain hitting the roof punctuated the air between them like bullets.

“Well, that’s a stupid idea,” she replied observationally. “And I’m _not_ your babysitter.”

She cast a glance at the child, who was currently attempting to climb onto Din’s boot. He reached down and scooped up the creature, perching him on his hip and taking a step towards her.

“Please. I need him to be safe–”

“Was he safe the last time you left him?” she cut in.

He didn’t have an answer to that. And a memory, unbidden, inserted itself into his head. Lying prone on the airpad, convulsing with the aftershocks of the charge grenade; the siren wailing of the child, trapped in the ship; Knives, reaching down to lift off his helmet.

“You think _you’re_ safe, going out there alone? Sick?” she continued, more forcefully now. “You think _any of us_ are safe?”

There was a wild light in her eyes now. Some barely contained emotion, bursting at the seams. She’d unconsciously – or perhaps deliberately – taken hold of her double-barrelled pistol and was gripping the stock so tightly her knuckles had turned bloodless and grey.

For a moment he imagined her turning the gun on him and instinctively angled his body to protect the child with his Beskar, but then she blinked and relaxed her hold a little, and all that desperation and fear and anger seemed to drain away into a resigned sort of exhaustion. A feeling he could understand wholeheartedly.

She looked up at him – one of those piercing looks that seemed to cut right through his visor.

“I’m coming with you,” she said flatly.

And that was that.

* * *

For a little while, the rain felt like a blessing – a blissful coolness that soaked through the gaps in his armour in a matter of minutes. But a short while after that the blessing turned to discomfort, then irritation, and soon became cold, shivering misery.

The streets were little more than mud, and the structures lining them had been built up on stilts to keep out of the wet. It seemed the rain was a permanent fixture here, mirrored in the grim faces of the inhabitants who stared impassively at the strangers as they passed.

The kid rode the journey tucked into a satchel slung across Din’s good shoulder and insisted on poking his head out no matter how many times Din attempted to keep it covered. Nanse walked beside them in silence, her weapon stowed beneath her cloak, her face a mask of practiced neutrality.

She hadn’t said a word since they left the ship and he didn’t think small talk was going to cut it this time. He didn’t have the energy to try, anyway.

Instead, he kept his focus on the road, on the darkened shopfronts and the clusters of uniformed workers who gathered under awnings and stared. They evidently didn’t get many off-world visitors here. The ‘trade hub’ was little more than a supply post at the centre of a vast industrial farming community. He’d seen larger complexes from the air, surrounded by fields stretching to the horizon – whole communities living and working on the land. And in between, small trading villages like this one – a place to pick up supplies, spare parts, the occasional luxury item, exchange some gossip in the local bar… And, he hoped, somewhere here, there would be some kind of healer.

The rain weighed down on him and the muddy ground made walking twice as draining as it should have been. He tried to shift his mindset back to before he’d known about the poison – a mild irritation at the lingering tiredness and the headache that just wouldn’t shift – but what was known couldn’t be unknown. And now there was an added edge of fear. Paranoia. A gnawing anticipation that it was only going to get worse.

The child had managed to wriggle his head out of the satchel again and was staring up at him with wide eyes, his ears drooping in the rain. Din attempted to pull the flap of the bag back over the creature but it grabbed hold of his wrist and hugged it to its chest, making a sad little crooning noise.

He slowed his pace a little and looked down at the child with a questioning tilt of his helmet.

The kid made the noise again, tugging at the Mandalorian’s sleeve until it managed to find a stripe of skin between his suit and his glove. And, with a satisfied humph, the creature settled one tiny hand on his _buir_ ’s arm and closed his eyes, a look of concentration wrinkling his brow.

“No,” Din barked, pulling his hand out of the child’s grip. He knew that look, knew what the kid was trying to do, and there was no way he was going to let it happen. Not now, not here, not with… whatever it was flowing through his veins. He had no doubt of the child’s healing abilities but he also had no idea how they worked. What if the child accidentally transferred the poison to himself? He was meant to be protecting the child, not using him as his own portable medic. He knew it cost the creature every time he used his powers and he was not about to take advantage of that.

The child reached for him again, a determined expression on its little face, huffing with frustration, but Din pried the little claws away once more with a sharp, “Stop it!”

His tone drew a disapproving glance from Nanse and tears welled in the child’s eyes. Guilt tightened his chest and he tucked the satchel in closer to his hip, murmuring a hurried apology to the boy, but couldn’t help but think he’d been right to want to come alone. He could feel the eyes on them – a strange trio by anyone’s standards – and a slow sense of dread crept up his spine. He knew when he was being sized up. Knew when danger was in the air.

He was about to insist that Nanse take the kid back to the ship when her arm flung across his vision, pointing through the grey curtain of the rain to a building on the corner. The red medic sigil had been clumsily painted above the door, standing out starkly against the whitewashed walls.

She was already heading towards it, looking back over her shoulder to frown at him, still standing in the rain like a silver statue. A wave of nerves rolled in his stomach – or perhaps it was yet another symptom of the poison. This was his only chance. A backwater doctor for farmers. He didn’t have the fuel nor the time to find another.

“Are you coming or not?” Nanse said, jolting him out of his thoughts. He nodded, and the rain trickled down the back of his collar making him shiver.

* * *

It was more of an apothecary than the medical surgery he’d been hoping for, but it was clean at least; the tart smell of some kind of sanitiser hung in the air as they stood dripping in the doorway. The walls were covered in shelving, stacked to the ceiling with bottles and books and packets and jars. A long counter spanned the back of the shop, and behind it stood a Carosite dressed in dark green robes, her long neck curved over a book. Beside her, a small, multi-armed droid skittered across the desktop, bleeping melodically to itself.

The Carosite looked up as the strangers entered and made no attempt to disguise her surprise at the sight of the Mandalorian.

“Greetings…” she said, in a curious tone, nodding to each of them in turn. “Welcome to Cappa-Zero-Nine. I’m guessing you’re not local. May I– ”

But Din had no time for pleasantries. “I need an antidote,” he blurted, crossing the store in three strides. “For poison.”

The medic looked taken aback for a moment, then forced a polite smile. “Greetings,” she said again, in the exact same cadence, only a little more firmly this time. “Welcome to Cappa-Zero-Nine. My name is Ama.”

He took the hint and inclined his head slowly. “Mando,” he replied.

Ama’s smile grew wider, more genuine. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed, “I have never met a Mandalorian before.” Her pitch increased a few tones when she spotted the little green ears poking out of Din’s bag. “Oh! And who is this?”

Din’s hand automatically came down to shield the child from view, but the creature’s curiosity was drawn to the excitable voice of the Carosite and he strained to reach the counter. The droid scuttled over, raising itself up on spiderlike legs to peer back at him, exchanging a series of bleeps and coos with the child.

“What a little treasure,” Ama beamed. “And what brings you to Cappa?"

Din sighed impatiently. “It was the closest planet. Have you heard of a poison called Galkah?”

But the medic’s attention had drifted to Nanse – or, rather, the double-barrelled pistol in the engineer’s hands – and she bared her teeth in a grimace. “Oh dear. I’ll need you to leave your weapons outside, I’m afraid. We don’t want any trouble. Cappa is a peaceful community.”

This time her tone had an edge to it. Nanse must have caught it too, because she glanced sideways at Din with a raised eyebrow. But he didn’t have the time or liberty to argue with the medic. She seemed harmless enough, and quite frankly, he was prepared to do whatever it took to get her listen. He nodded back at the engineer, passing her his own rifle as she turned for the door.

Once the engineer had propped both weapons beneath the awning out front and rejoined him at the counter, Ama settled back into her pleasant – if a little odd – demeanour, cocking her head at Nanse this time.

“And you are?”

“The babysitter,” Nanse replied coldly, holding the Carosite’s gaze until she sensibly decided to drop any further line of questioning.

“Well. It truly is a pleasure to meet all of you,” Ama said, with a satisfied sigh, as if this slow, elongated series of introductions was a necessary part of the doctoring process. “So. How can I help you?”

Din restrained the urge to growl at her and let his vocoder level his frustrated tone. “Galkah,” he said shortly.

“Ahh yes!” she said, nodding knowingly, as if she hadn’t just railroaded all attempts at discussing the issue at hand, before pushing up her sleeves and making some sort of silent appraisal of the three of them. The droid seemed to mirror her, scuttling up and down the counter and stopping in front of each of them in turn.

Finally, she fixed her sights on the Mandalorian’s visor. “Your hand, please,” she said.

He paused for a second, uncertain, then held out his left hand, which she took in both of hers, pulling down the edge of his glove to press her fingers into the underside of his wrist.

“You did not drink it, presumably?” she asked, then shook her head and let out a short, good-natured laugh. “No. You would not be standing here if you had.”

He stood awkwardly as she took his pulse, her smile never wavering, and for a moment he wondered if all of this was a dream – if he was still back in the cockpit, sweating through his fever, imagining the whole thing. After the chill of the rain, the medic’s shop felt almost humid, and every blink seemed to make him feel drowsier and drowsier…

After a few more moments, Ama patted him on the back of the hand and let it drop. “Lovely. Other one, please.”

He obliged, trying not to feel like a child, but this time she frowned the moment she touched the skin of his right wrist. This time she tapped at his vambrace with one clawed finger.

“I’m going to need you to take this off, my dear.”

He clenched his teeth in barely contained annoyance. “Look, I don’t need a consultation. I just need the antidote.”

Her immovable smile flashed again. “All part of the service. And a necessary measure for dosage. Won’t take a minute, I promise.”

Begrudgingly, and for the second time that day, he stripped off his wrist bracer and set it down in front of him. The little droid buzzed at the armour curiously and sent out an enquiring arm but Din shooed it away with his free hand before it could touch the Beskar. In an ideal world, he would have backhanded it off the counter, but he didn’t think the Carosite would have taken that too kindly, and didn’t want to add any more interruptions to this whole infuriating process. He was all too aware of how little time he had left and could feel the minutes passing like hands on a clock.

The medic took up his right hand again and pulled his sleeve back, up to the elbow. Both she and Nanse took in matching, hissing breaths, and when he looked down he had to bite back his own response. It was as if the blood vessels had splintered off into a thousand tiny threads, spidering across his forearm like scars. The usual blue-green veins were pale and colourless – almost white – standing out starkly against his skin.

Ama’s voice lost some of its cheery tone but she made an attempt to keep it light nonetheless. “Well. That’s not ideal, is it?”

She carefully rolled his sleeve further up and he could see it was even worse closer to the wound, the skin blushed dark red and tender with infection. The medic prodded at his upper arm and he stifled a wince.

The rising heat of his fever was coming in sweeps now, making him sweat beneath his armour, making his head swim with hazy exhaustion, making it hard to focus, to listen, to think. The sound of the rain outside felt like a wall of noise. He vaguely registered the child tugging on the bottom of his chest plate, trying to see above the countertop but the room had begun to spin, lazily, like space debris. He blinked slowly.

A voice bled through the haze. “…has it been?”

He gave himself a little shake. The medic had asked him a question but he hadn’t quite caught it. She was peering at him with concern, now. As was Nanse.

“What?” he muttered.

“How long, dear?” Ama said carefully, “Since you were poisoned?”

He tried to think. Found that he couldn’t figure it out. Time was strange in space. And he hadn’t slept properly since R’Ossel Vorna. He managed to stammer an incoherent noise before Nanse stepped in.

“Two days,” the engineer said. 

The medic nodded, exchanging a look with Nanse, and gently pulled his sleeve back down again. After her unshakeable customer service smile, the sudden sombre expression on her face was disconcerting to say the least.

“I see. I’m sorry, Mando. If you’d come to me yesterday–”

He gripped the edge of the counter to steady himself. Sorry wasn’t good enough. Sorry was a death sentence. “Can you help or not?” he asked in a rasp.

Her smile looked pasted on now. “Well, of course. I mean, I’d have to check if I have all the ingredients, and it takes a while to prepare…”

“How long?” Nanse demanded.

The Carosite clicked her nails on the counter and her droid scurried into her arms like some sort of insectile pet. She stroked it absently and looked at the Mandalorian with a pained expression. “A few days at least.”

He laughed without meaning to. A choked exhalation cut off sharply by his vocoder.

Ama and Nanse stared at him with matching looks of sickening pity. The child made an uncertain little meep and pulled on his hand.

“Well then,” he said, in as steady a voice as he could, “You’d better get started.”

The Carosite’s plastered on smile returned, albeit a little strained. “Of course. But, uh… I’ll need payment upfront. You understand.”

_Right. In case I’m not alive to collect._

And he wanted to laugh again. Hysterically. Because after all this, he didn’t have a single credit to offer her.

But before he could say so, Nanse upended her bag onto the counter and shook out a pile of clattering credit chits. “Will this cover it?” she said.

He stared sideways at the engineer but she wouldn’t meet his eyeline.

“It’s yours, anyway,” she said quietly, and he realised it was the money he’d offered her back on R’Ossell Vorna. It wasn’t a huge amount but it was better than nothing. He’d assumed it had been left behind with everything else when they’d fled but apparently she was even shrewder than he’d thought.

The medic finished sorted through the money and gave an apologetic grimace. “Not quite.”

“A down payment then,” Din said. “We’ll get you the rest.”

She looked panicked all of a sudden, clutching the droid tighter to her chest. “Oh dear. I’m afraid transactions on Cappa-Zero-Nine don’t work that way. Everything is regulated here. It has to go through the colony accounts and–”

His gaze fell to the vambrace still lying on the counter. “Will you take that?” he said, and he felt more than heard Nanse’s sharp intake of breath beside him. The medic had frozen, mid-sentence, and all eyes dropped to the piece of armour. 

“As collateral,” he clarified. “If we’re not back within two days with the full payment, it’s yours.”

He tried to detach himself from the words even as they left his mouth. This was the way. The only way. His armour had saved his life countless times before, and this was no different. He would get it back. He would find a way to pay the medic properly. He would get the antidote. There was no other option. 

The Carosite ran a claw over the vambrace. “Is this real Beskar?”

“Are you a real medic?” he shot back

She looked scandalised for a brief moment but let the rudeness pass, giving him a curt nod and quickly stashing the vambrace away in a drawer before he could change his mind.

“Two days,” she repeated, cementing the deal.

He inclined his head. “Thank you, Ama.”

She gave him another insufferably pitying look and he had to turn away. He could tell she didn’t believe he’d make it back in time, or at all. He didn’t risk looking at Nanse in case her face said the same thing. He headed for the door. He would prove them all wrong.

“Wait!” Ama called out, just as he reached the threshold, and he looked back to see her holding out a hypo-syringe.

“Take this,” the medic said, as Nanse stepped back to the counter. “In case he weakens,” Ama explained in an undertone. Then louder, to him: “I’ll add it to your bill.”

He sighed. “Great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have another weird OC. And a whole lotta stalling. I swear I have plans for Cappa-09, and a whole more awkward convos between Din and Nanse, but for some reason this chapter decided to be 3k long. It is what it is. The mysteries of fic space and time. 
> 
> I hope you are enjoying increasingly poisoned/injured Din. I am a terrible person and he doesn't deserve this, I know. Shh. It'll all be fine. 
> 
> Probably.


	11. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din has a plan, okay?

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he muttered to the engineer, snatching up his rifle from the doorway as they headed back out into the rain and setting a striding pace that sent his already strained heartrate thudding. 

She grabbed her own weapon and caught up with him, slipping a little on the muddy thoroughfare. “Done what?”

“Given her those credits.”

His voice came out sharper than he’d meant it to but he couldn’t help it – everything felt on edge right now. His head was pounding, his bones ached, and his skin couldn’t seem to decide if it was too hot, too cold, or both at the same time. He forced his legs to keep moving mechanically but every footfall felt like a jarring blow that ran all the way up through his spine to the base of his skull where it added to his headache.

Nanse was silent for a moment, then risked a sideways glance at him, looking somewhere between irritated and guilty. “Look, I was going to give them back to you…”

He shook his head – which was a painful mistake – and spoke through gritted teeth, “That’s not what I meant.”

He didn’t have the words or energy to explain. He’d willingly given her those credits to fix his armour and she’d spent them on medicine. To save him. It hadn’t even been enough to hire her in the first place and she’d saved his life twice since then and there was no way in the galaxy he could ever repay her for any of it. 

And she thought he was pissed because it was _his_ money?

He squinted against the pain in his head, trying to force his thoughts into some sort of coherent sentence, but only managed a sigh.

She scowled at her dirt-splattered boots and pulled her borrowed cloak tighter around her shoulders, “We had to give her _something_.”

“I did,” he said in an undertone. His right forearm felt uncomfortably light without his wrist bracer and he clenched and unclenched his fist to distract from the unnerving sensation.

“Yeah, great idea,” she snapped, waving a hand up and down his remaining Beskar. “Why not sell the rest of it while you’re at it?”

He ignored the sarcasm, fixing his sights on the dome-roofed bar at the end of the street instead. He had to focus. Push aside the aches and sweats and swaying vision that threatened to topple him. Not get distracted by the blurring of the rain; how heavy the grey sky felt on his shoulders; how much he’d like to just lie down right here in the muddy road and sleep…

He shook himself alert. Reconsidered those last few wandering, dreamlike thoughts. That was the poison talking, trying to pull him under, trying to get him to give up. He couldn’t afford to listen to it. Had to keep a hold on himself, _haar'chak…_

When he tuned back in, Nanse was still talking, a desperate edge to her tone now, “...I mean, there must be something else on your ship we can trade? Tools? Equipment? Weapons?”

But he’d already gone through all those options and disregarded them. “This is a farming community,” he said. “Who’s going to pay for weapons?”

“Well, maybe I can get some work fixing machinery...”

As her voice raised in pitch, his dropped to a husk of a whisper, the searing pulse in his temples threatening to take him to his knees. “They have their own engineers,” he murmured, “And it won’t be enough…”

“Something more specialist then, I can try–”

“Just stop,” he barked, coming to an abrupt stop beside one of the stilted buildings and leaning heavily against the scaffold as he rode a fresh wave of nausea and dizziness.

She ducked around the stiltwork, out of the rain, and frowned as she read his body language. Even though he knew she couldn’t see through his visor he still found himself avoiding her gaze as he bent almost double, concentrating on breathing through the vertigo. She watched him in shrewd silence and he wondered just how pathetic he looked right now. How pathetic he’d seemed from the very moment she’d met him, in fact. Some Mandalorian. Some warrior. He hated not being in full control of his body. Not being able to even walk in a straight line for more than a few hundred yards…

“We have to do _something_ ,” she said quietly, when he finally straightened up.

“I am doing something,” he growled, pushing away from the scaffold and setting off once more - slower than before but no less purposeful.

“Doing what?”

He heard her footsteps sloshing through the mud behind him but didn’t turn. Didn’t reply. Kept on walking. Put everything he had into forging onward.

Two days to fix this. Two days to survive. He didn’t have time to argue, to explain.

 _Two days._ It wasn’t enough. 

He swallowed thickly and tamped down the panic that threatened to swamp his thoughts. 

_One foot in front of the other._ _Just keep going until you can’t any more. Keep fighting. For your clan._

The sound of the rain blended with the rushing of blood in his ears and all but muffled Nanse’s voice calling out for him again, more urgently this time. He still didn’t stop – couldn’t stop – didn’t she get it? He had to keep moving or he’d fall down…

“Mando, wait–”

“I have a plan,” he said shortly as she caught up to him again.

“What plan?” she demanded.

He shook his head. He couldn’t do this with her questioning his every move. This was his mess and he needed to take care of it. 

He cast a look down at her and let his vocoder strip any emotion from his words. “Go back to the ship.”

Her outrage was immediate and unrestrained. “No!”

He sighed, wishing for nothing more than to be able to pull off his helmet and rub his knuckles into his eye sockets. “Nanse–”

“No, tell me. What plan?”

She reached out and yanked on his arm – his bad arm – and he seethed with pain, curling reflexively around his injured shoulder. She didn’t let go but used the momentum to push him sideways into an alleyway between buildings, out of sight of the main street. 

He caught himself before he stumbled, instinctively clasping a protective hand around the satchel at his side. The child made a surprised little noise but was otherwise undisturbed by the sudden movement. Din hunched over the foundling a moment longer than necessary, reluctant to meet the stare he could feel burning through the back of his helmet. But when he finally turned, there was a trace of uncertainty behind the engineer’s mask of anger.

“Tell me,” she said slowly, and he could hear that keeping her voice flat was taking considerable effort.

He didn’t know how to answer. Couldn’t think properly through the fog in his head. His ‘plan’ consisted of finding someone who needed a Mandalorian and hoping they had the credits to pay him, but that sounded idiotic when you said it out loud.

He sighed again. “Just let me handle it…”

He tried to move past her – back to his mission – but she blocked his way, jaw clenched tight. “I can’t let you–”

“We don’t have time for this,” he snapped, taking another step forward, relying on the bulk of his armour to force her to move her out of the way, but this time she put a hand on his chestplate and shoved him, harder than he’d expected she was capable of.

He staggered back a step, not so much hurt as baffled, trying to piece together whatever it was he’d missed to make her react like this, but his addled brain wasn’t up to the task so he stood there in dumb silence instead. At his side, the child let out a little whimper, sensing the change in atmosphere.

Nanse’s eyes darted down to the boy and back up at the Mandalorian. There was that uncertainty again. But then she shook it out of her head and her eyes turned steely. “I meant what I said. If you try…”

And this time she really was pointing her gun at him.

He raised his hands, slow and deliberate, watching her face struggle to contain some conflicted emotion he couldn’t quite read.

“Your Guild friend was right,” she said, forcing a painful smile.

And the missing pieces slipped into place with a horrible clarity. Greef’s message... The clang he’d heard at the bottom of the ladder – she’d been listening. His stomach churned at the memory of it. All that talk of easy money…

“He was right though, wasn’t he?” she said in a tight voice. “My bounty _would_ be worth a lot to you. It’d cover your medicine. Fuel. Get you far away from here. Somewhere safe for your kid…”

She almost seemed resigned to the idea and tried to shrug, as though she understood the practicality of it, but he could see the clench of her jaw and the glitter of moisture in her eyes.

He didn’t dare move. Or breathe. He knew how precarious trust could be. Knew the face of desperation when he saw it.

She took a long, steadying breath and all but spat out her next words. “Well, Mando? Is that your plan?”

For once, he wished he wasn’t wearing his helmet. Wished she could see the truth in his face. He tried to show it through his voice, instead. Low and calm. As soft as he could make it. And he kept his hands up, kept his eyes on the barrel of her weapon, angling the child behind him.

“You said you’d kill me if I tried to bring you in,” he said plainly.

He’d thought that had been made clear. Thought they’d come to an agreement. But apparently that wasn’t the answer she was after. She tightened her grip on the gun.

“And are you going to?”

“No.”

She barked out a disbelieving laugh. “No, not until I’ve fixed your armour, right?”

He winced at the accusation. _Is that really what she thought of him?_

“Not even then,” he said, and risked taking a half-step toward her. Everything felt slowed down, somehow – he didn’t know if it was adrenaline or the poison, but he could feel every raindrop on his armour like pinpricks; could see a rainbow shimmer in her petrol irises; a blue flush creeping up her cheeks, deepening to purple as it reached her temples.

“Well then, you’re stupider than you look,” she snapped, but there wasn’t much bite in it this time.

He took another step. He was within arm’s reach of her now, almost at point blank range, but still he kept his hands up – palms open, fingers relaxed, no threatening moves.

She stood her ground but her resolve was wavering. Her breath kept hitching in her chest and the gun had started to tremble in her hands. The barrel was up against his belly now, pressing into his under armour, just beneath his chestplate. He’d seen what her weapon could do. He wouldn’t survive a gut shot from this close. But at least it would be quicker than the poison.

Whatever happened next was up to her.

“Nanse…” he said softly, “I’m not going to turn you in. You’re safe with me. I promise.”

The words hit her like a slap. She turned her face away, drawing in a long, shuddering breath, and when she let it out again all the tension in her shoulders seemed to drain away. She let the weapon drop to her side, taking a stumbling step backwards.

Din resisted the urge to reach out to steady her, to make some sort of contact to reinforce what he’d said – instead, he simply waited, breathing slow and shallow, until she finally looked back up at him.

“I thought…” she began, but gave up before finishing the sentence. She looked almost as exhausted as he felt. 

And he could only imagine what she’d thought – what must have been going through her head since hearing Karga’s message – that he was just waiting for the right moment to shove her into a carbonite chamber?

He sighed, lowering his hands just as slowly as he’d raised them. He hadn’t meant for any of this. And, while on general principle he didn’t take kindly to anyone who pointed a gun at him, he couldn’t exactly blame her for her suspicion. She came from a place where lives were traded like gambling chits. Why would she ever trust a bounty hunter like him? He’d made her situation even worse, turned her into a fugitive, and repeatedly failed in his promises to protect her. No wonder she wanted to put a bolt in him.

“Look,” he said, “I realise… none of this was part of the deal...” 

He rolled his injured shoulder with a tight grunt and gestured broadly at the rain-soaked street to illustrate his point.

“So… if you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”

She frowned at that, consternation etched into her features. “But you–”

“I’m handling it.”

She stared flatly at him and a little of the snark he was used to returned to her voice. “Uh huh. Looks like it. And where, exactly, would I go?”

He shrugged. “There’s plenty of trade here. You could find another ship. A pilot in better condition, maybe?”

She glanced around at the Podunk town and raised an eyebrow. “Or… settle down to a life of farming?”

A fleeting, unbidden vision of Sorgan flashed through his head. The laughing faces of children chasing each other around the pools. _Omera_.

“There are worse things,” he said quietly.

She fiddled with the strap across her chest, shifting her weapon to her back – a silent gesture of peace – and offered him a strained smile. “As much as it pains me to say it, I think you’re my best shot right now.”

A flood of unexpected relief washed over him and he covered it with a clipped laugh that huffed out of his vocoder. 

“Well then. You’re stupider than you look, too.”

* * *

He was still jittery with residual tension from the standoff as they stepped through the doorway of the bar. A light cycled up and down a scanner fixed to the wall and made a flat beep as it registered their guns.

“No weapons,” a wall-mounted speaker droned at them. “Cappa-zero-nine is a peaceful community.”

“Heard that one before,” Din muttered, dropping his rifle and pistol into the weapons cache. He wasn’t particularly comfortable about the situation but it matched his expectations of the place and fitted into his plan, vague though it was. A town with such tight regulations on firepower had a reason for it. And that reason might very well require the services of a hired gun.

Nanse followed suit, but more reluctantly, eyeing the half-empty bar room with intense distrust. The clientele was as expected: grim-faced workers in the same grey coveralls, either nursing a drink after a night shift, or shovelling in breakfast before a morning shift. A few of the patrons looked up at the strangers as they passed, but no one’s gaze lingered. At least not overtly.

The barman gave them a brief nod before busying himself with stacking glasses. Behind him, one of the same scuttling droids they’d seen at Ama’s place crawled across a shelf and turned its red eye on the Mandalorian.

Din ignored them all, making a beeline for an empty booth at the back of the room.

Nanse slid into the seat opposite him and leaned on the table, side-eyeing the patrons at the next table. “What are we doing here?” she whispered.

He settled the child beside him, still hidden in the satchel, and leaned back against the wall as nonchalantly as his aching shoulder would permit.

“This is a ‘peaceful community’,” he echoed, nodding back at the weapons scanner. “And Ama said she didn’t want any trouble.”

Nanse blinked at him. “So?”

“So,” he said slowly. “That means there _is_ trouble. And _that_ means there’s work.”

“What–?”

“Just. Wait.” he sighed, trying to make the most of the brief opportunity for a rest. The intensity of their altercation in the alleyway had cleared his head a little, but the physical symptoms of the poison still roared through him. He tried not to wonder how much worse it was going to get before the next few days were up. If he made it that far.

He let his eyes close, relying on his other senses to stay alert. He felt the child wriggling in the satchel beside him. Heard Nanse whisper, “some plan,” under her breath. Could sense the rippling discomfort and anxiety within the room - the subtle looks and murmured gossip that passed from person to person about this stranger, this Mandalorian in their midst...

And there was something comfortingly familiar in this play. He was used to dive bars like this. Used to the sort of back-handed deals that went on in them. And he knew if he had one chance at making enough credits to save his life, this was it.

It took less than ten minutes. He heard Nanse draw in a breath, felt the shadow of a figure approaching, and opened his eyes just as a short, bald, orange skinned humanoid reached their table and gave a little bow. His clothes were the same colony-assigned grey but instead of the shapeless uniform of the workers, he wore a high-collared tunic over precisely-pressed pants. A person of rank, apparently.

Din made no move or greeting, letting his Beskar do the necessary intimidation, and watched to see how the official would react.

The man bowed again and nodded to Nanse, as if seeing her for the first time, then looked nervously back at the Mandalorian and cleared his throat.

“Um. Sir?”

That was a new one. Din waited a few seconds and then let his helmet tilt forward just a touch.

The man took a breath and let his words out in one exhale. “Uh, well, Mr Mando, Sir, my employer would like to speak with you.”

And that’s how it goes. You find someone in need of a Mandalorian and hope they have the money to pay. 

He allowed himself a smile behind his visor as Nanse glanced over at him but kept his voice flat and unhurried.

“Alright then. Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _haar'chak_ = damn it
> 
> Almost fell into Dutch van der Linde “I HAVE A PLAN” territory with this one but at least Din is honest about flying by the seat of his shiny pants. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this little dose of angst and misunderstanding. Next up, Din gets a job.


	12. The Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din gets a job. And a talking to.

They took a speeder out to the colony through seemingly endless fields of a pale brown crop that did nothing to brighten the dull grey atmosphere of Cappa-Zero-Nine. Huge harvesting machines rumbled through the farmland, startling up flocks of black, long-beaked birds that wheeled in curious circles above the speeder before gliding off to pillage the next field over. In the distance, a squat collection of bronze-coloured domes marked their destination – the ‘base’, the official called it.

The man’s name was Jorran, and he had seemed more than relieved when the Mandalorian and the engineer chose to sit in the back rather than up front with him. And to avoid any further conversation, he provided them with a non-stop nervous garble of commentary on the planet’s agricultural history all the way. This, combined with the continuous patter of rain on the speeder’s canopy, made for a droning sort of white noise that made every blink heavier than the last.

Din let himself drift into a half-doze, reserving his energy for whatever awaited them when they arrived. His condition was deteriorating at an unnerving pace but he needed to at least present the illusion of being fully functional if he was going to get this job. It was becoming alarmingly easy to slip into a poison-fuelled haze if he let his attention wander. Behind the fever and the pain and the nausea there was an almost pleasant side-effect of sensory intensity – the lulling whirr of the speeder’s engine; the warm, reassuring jostle of the child beside him; the colour-shifting shine of Nanse’s hair and the way she frowned every time she had to roll back the too-long sleeves of her borrowed shirt…

He jolted in his seat, muttering a Mando’a curse under his breath, and the engineer glanced sideways at him in mild surprise. He fixed his gaze straight ahead, forcing his attention back into the world – on his thrumming headache and his burning shoulder. Better to focus on the pain than give in to whatever dreamstate the poison was trying to lure him into. He gritted his teeth and balled his fists on his knees, irritated with himself for allowing his focus to wander.

He could feel Nanse’s eyes lingering on him as the monotone mumble of Jorran’s guided tour drifted back into his hearing range.

“How did you know?” she asked in a murmur, keeping her eyes on the driver to make sure he didn’t overhear.

“Know what?”

“That someone would come?” she added, in answer to the enquiring the tilt of his helmet.

“I didn’t.”

He’d bet on it, though. He never managed to pass more than an hour or two in any place without being approached by someone with some dirty work to be carried out. People saw a Mandalorian and thought: ‘hired gun’. It shouldn’t be that way but he’d come to peace with his role as _beroya_ , providing for the Tribe. Outsiders could think what they liked. They didn’t know the truth of the Mandalorian creed; the honour his armour represented; the family it protected. And he would do what it took to keep his clan safe.

Nanse was still watching him and he realised she was waiting for him to elaborate on his answer. He kept his hand on his thigh but pointed his index finger at the console at the front of the speeder. A small vid-screen was set into the dash, showing a grainy image that flickered and changed every few seconds. It was difficult to see details from the backseat but it seemed to be a series of livestreams depicting streets and interiors within the colony. And above the screen, an innocuous red light blinked at them.

Nanse’s eyes followed where he pointed. “They’ve been watching us?” she whispered.

He gave the barest of nods. He figured they’d been under some sort of surveillance since they landed. He stood out well enough, and Jorran hadn’t bothered with any introductions or pleasantries – they knew he was here and they had a use for him.

He didn’t much care what the job was. Some kind of security operation, he assumed. It was unlikely there would be any bounty work on a place like this but perhaps something was threatening the colony – raiders, some kind of indigenous creature, a rival company? It didn’t matter, so long as it paid well. And he’d been doing this kind of work long enough not to waste time or energy speculating about it. No job ever went to plan, in his experience. He’d gone to Arvala-7 looking for a fifty-year-old bounty, and he’d come back with the little green creature currently chewing on the strap of his satchel. Only this time he couldn’t let his morals get in the way. He needed this job. His life, and the safety of the child, depended on it.

* * *

Jorran brought the speeder to a stop outside an entranceway that led to a large glasshouse dome clearly designed to provide an imposing introduction to the colony base. And it certainly did the job.

The official smiled his first genuine smile since they’d met him – a little proud, a little smug, and clearly grateful to be back on his home turf.

“Welcome to East Base,” he said grandly, gesturing for them to follow him towards the entrance.

Even though he’d seen the colony from the air, Din was not remotely prepared for the sheer scale of it close up. Innumerable domed buildings were connected to one another by glass-roofed corridors, creating a sprawling web of structures that stretched out in every direction. It was like a purpose-built city, making the muddy town they’d just come from seem like a tiny pit stop in comparison. The inner section of East Base comprised what looked like offices, stores, utility services, and militaristic mess halls. And on the outskirts, massive storehouses were flanked by series of small, identical single-dome dwellings – the workers’ accommodation, he guessed.

It was impressive. And much more than he’d expected, which was a good sign, considering he was relying on them having the finances to dig him out of his current predicament.

The Mandalorian pulled the satchel flap over the child’s head as they neared the glasshouse, tucking the boy’s ears in as gently as he could. “I need you to stay out of sight, little one,” he told him quietly. The child peeped back at him, only his eyes visible through the gap. Din patted the creature through the fabric and let the weight of the bag ground him. Give him purpose.

A wash of low blood pressure hit him after sitting still for so long but he pushed through it, grateful for the mask of his visor to hide his pale, sweating face. Nanse walked stiffly beside him, wearing her own mask of neutral expression, and as tenuous as their current alliance might be, he was glad of her company. She could have cut her losses, found some other ride off the planet, left him to his fate, but she was - for some reason - still here. And, as they headed into the colony and another sweeping wave of faintness washed over him, he was grateful to have someone watching his back. 

The moment they passed through the archway to the great glass dome, a piercing noise ripped through his head. For a moment he thought his armour was short circuiting again but then he saw the flashing scanners set into the doorway, saw Nanse wincing along with him, and realised it was an alarm.

Jorran came scurrying back towards them, his orange skin flushing a bright, dark red. “No weapons inside the base!”

In his dazed state, being charged by the irate official was almost enough for Din to instinctively fire from the hip but he restrained himself, forcing his breathing rate back down.

Jorran waved them towards a weapons locker beside the door. “Please. Cappa-Zero-Nine is–”

“– a peaceful community,” Din finished for him, deadpan. “So I hear.”

The official looked relieved at his understanding and nodded in satisfaction as the Mandalorian obediently submitted his rifle and blaster to the locker. Nanse followed suit, even more reluctantly than she’d been in the bar, and eventually the alarm cut off, leaving their ears ringing.

Jorran mumbled an anxious apology and hurried them on, past a growing crowd of staring colonists, through the glass-roofed corridors, and deeper into the maze-like layout of the structure.

The inhabitants of the base all wore some variation of Jorran’s neat grey tunic – administrators, officials, and general citizenry, Din assumed. The upper classes of the colony. Because there were certainly no workers here. He’d seen plenty out in the field and back at the little backstop town where they’d landed, but apparently the domes of the inner colony were reserved for the elite.

The bronze walls seemed to shine, illuminated by orb-like lamps every few feet – perhaps in an attempt to block out the grey-brown landscape outside. Din wondered if the sun every shone here. It was an odd illusion, being inside the warm, glowing domes while the relentless rain lashed down upon the glass ceiling of the connecting hallways. The rounded edges of the architecture made him feel off-balance, although to be fair that wasn't hard to do given his current condition. 

He could feel trails of sweat making their way down the back of his neck. Shooting pains jarred through his shoulder, ending in pinprick tingles in his fingertips, and he wondered how much further those white splintered veins had spread. What would happen when the poison reached his heart...?

He kept his visor facing forward, kept his back straight, aware that every passing colonist was staring at him. He told himself it was the novelty of seeing a Mandalorian and not because they could see right through him; could sense his sickness. More than once he found himself bumping into Nanse as he struggled to keep up the pretence but she had the decency not to react besides the occasional sideways glance.

The citizens of the base made no such attempt at hiding their curiosity, sometimes stopping in the middle of the corridor to watch him go by. And here and there, those same spiderlike droids skittered along the polished floor or rode on colonists’ shoulders like tiny personal assistants. Something about them freaked him out more than usual. The jerky way they moved. The way they appeared out of nowhere, scuttling across his path. The way they peered up at him with their red eyes. One of them skittered a little too close for comfort and he had to stop himself booting it down the corridor. 

"Mando," the engineer whispered, tugging on his sleeve, and he stopped mid-step. The others had stopped but he hadn't noticed, so wrapped up in his morbid fascination with the droids. 

Nanse shot him a concerned look and Joran gave a stiffly polite smile as he rejoined them. 

“Well. Here we are,” Jorran said, rapping his knuckles smartly on a door that led to one of the larger domes. 

The awkward silence stretched out as they waited for a response, but eventually, a muffled yell sounded from within and Jorran led them into a huge office, probably the same size as one of the workers’ domiciles on the outskirts of the colony. A vast desk stood at its centre, and behind it sat a man who was the first person they’d seen who wasn’t wearing grey. After the endless stream of dull uniformity, the man’s dark blue clothing marked him out as somebody clearly high ranking, and he reinforced this impression by actively ignoring his guests and continuing to focus on the paperwork spread in front of him.

There were no chairs on their side of the desk so they were left standing in the centre of the room like children waiting to be disciplined by a teacher. Jorran stood to attention with a fixed grin as the man held up one finger in a 'wait' gesture. After half a minute of this, Din found himself swaying slightly, his leaden feet sinking into the floor, his head too heavy on his neck, threatening to nod forward into his chest with every exhalation. He straightened up a little as he felt Nanse’s hand on his lower back, holding him steady. She kept it there for just a moment or two but it was as if she’d left a handprint, cool and firm.

At last, the man cleared his work to one side and looked up at them with a broad salesman’s smile, as though he’d only just noticed they were waiting there.

“Governor Andales…” Jorran said, bowing slightly to the man at the desk. “The Mandalorian. And…” he faltered a little as he looked back to Nanse, realising he hadn’t actually asked her name.

“His assistant,” she answered smartly.

“Ah, yes, our visitors...” the Governor said, making a short, shrewd appraisal of the pair before him. “Welcome to Cappa-Zero-Nine. I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay so far. A shame you’ve found us in the rainy season but it’s good for the crops, as we like to say. And what brings you here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Din blinked slowly at the man’s quickfire speech. He wasn’t up to small talk right now but he generally found his clients expected a taciturn response so he obliged with a small uptick of his helm.

“We need fuel. And credits.”

Andales’ smile seemed to gain teeth. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement that suits your requirements. There’s no Guild here, but we do have the occasional need for your particular skillset. Not as exciting as your usual work, I suspect, but it pays well.”

The Governor swept the rest of the paperwork to one side of the desk and activated a holoscreen set into the surface with a few swipes of his fingers. A glowing map of the colony leapt to life above the tabletop, and Andales manipulated the display as he continued his monologue.

“This colony is expanding faster than any other in the system,” he said, with unabashed smugness. “The leading distributor of durug-meal on the outer rim. And we are just one of twelve bases on this side of the continent alone, with three more being built as we speak. We are _thriving_ , Mando, but there is still much to be done. Cappa used to be a wilderness, you know – half desert, half swamp. A handful of far flung settlements, barely surviving. The colony brought them together, brought peace to factions squabbling over borders. Brought _civilisation_.”

The General paused for effect, perhaps expecting applause for his rousing speech. But to Din, it all sounded a little too similar to Imperial rhetoric for his liking. Or perhaps the man just liked to feel important. He probably didn’t get too many chances to show off to newcomers. And there was a limit to how excited a person could get over durug-meal.

Either way, he was tired of the pre-amble. “What’s the job?” he sighed.

Andales made a sudden sharp movement over the holo-display and it zoomed out to an aerial view of the landscape, beyond the base and surrounding fields, to a patch of bare land to the south. A glowing line marked out some sort of road that eventually led to another, smaller base. And, half way along it, a series of small square shapes. The Governor gestured at them with a frown.

“There are… still a few outliers, down in the valleys. Small ranches still sticking to the ‘old ways’, out there all alone. We would like to… bring them into the fold.”

Din scanned over the map, reading between the lines of the Governor’s euphemisms.

“You mean ‘get them out of the way’,” he said, nodding at the line connecting the bases and the little cluster of buildings in the middle.

Andales laughed good-naturedly, waving away the accusation. “Well, yes. This particular one does happen to be right on one of our expansion transport routes. But in all honesty, it would be much more in their benefit than ours. They’re barely scraping by out there. Here, we take care of our citizens. They’ll get a fair deal for the land, a brand new home, a decent wage, shares in the colony, a _community_ that looks after one another. Everything they could possibly need...” 

_Except their autonomy,_ Din thought. _And a nice grey uniform to match all the others…_

Andales sighed, as if the whole thing was tiresome. “But… provincials, you know? They don’t like change. We’ve tried to negotiate, to compromise, but they are… stubborn. Took a shot at some of my men the last time we sent envoys out there. And, as you know, we are a peaceful community – no firearms of any sort are permitted in the colony.”

At this, the Governor cast an eye up and down the Mandalorian’s armour. “Which is why we would appreciate your help in taking a more… professional approach. Persuade them to take the deal.”

A muscle job, then. Intimidation and threats, all dressed up in Beskar.

“And if they say no?” he said.

The Governor’s response was a tight smile.

Din lifted his chin, looking down on the man in front of him. “I’m a bounty hunter, not a mercenary.”

Andales let out a forced laugh. “Who said _mercenary_? I’m sure your presence will be enough to convince them to sign the papers. Maker knows we’ve already issued enough warnings. Look, they have twenty-four hours to leave before we legally have to get the higher authorities involved, and, well, that’s a whole lot of extra paperwork all round…”

The man laughed again, short and cold, and shuffled the papers on his desk in a distracted kind of way.

“Well? What do you say? It’s well paid. And there could be more work for you afterwards – we’re always looking to expand the colony.”

Din stood there and hated himself for a long moment. He disliked this man intensely. Knew in his heart the job was rotten. But he also knew he was going to take it. He had to. And he’d done a lot worse, for a lot less.

“We’ll need a speeder,” he said flatly.

The Governor clapped his hands together. “Excellent. Jorran will see to it, and program in the location for you.”

The official scurried to the door at his cue, ushering the visitors out as the Governor almost immediately lost interest in them and returned to his papers, looking up one last time just before the door closed behind them.

“You’ve made the _right_ decision, Mando,” Andales said, with a final toothy grin, and Din was left wondering what would have happened if he’d turned it down.

* * *

It was just a job like any other. He had his target. He had his instructions. He would get it done and he would get paid. That’s all there was to it. He could act the part set out for him and intimidate some poor farmer into signing away his land – it might not be a worthy mission but the ends justified the means. He wasn’t doing this for the General. He wasn’t even doing it for himself. He was doing it for his child. And that had to count for something.

He tried not to think too hard about it – in fact, thinking clearly about anything right now was becoming increasingly difficult – and fixed his sights on the road ahead.

_Just get it done._

The route to the ranch was displayed on the speeder vidscreen, and above it, that same familiar little red light blinked. Din had no doubt the Governor was keeping them under close watch and Nanse seemed to wordlessly assume the same. She stowed the child in the footwell, out of sight, and they drove in silence until the domes of East Base were distant lumps on the horizon.

He was grateful for the quiet. The effects of the poison weren’t quite as intense while he was sitting still but his head still pounded and the fever was quickly turning the inside of his suit into a swamp. The road weaved and doubled in his vision, and more than once he had to jerk the controls back to centre when he found himself drifting. His right arm felt cold and numb, and he tightened his grip against the speeder controls to try to work some feeling back into it. The lack of bracer on his forearm startled him every time he noticed it.

He could feel Nanse throwing concerned glances his way every so often. Could tell she was itching to say something. She’d been giving him the same looks ever since they’d left Ama’s place – as if she expected him to fall over at any moment. He tried to ignore it. He’d almost rather she pointed her gun at him again than pity him. He didn’t want or deserve her sympathy, and it only served to remind him of how slim his chances were. But as the miles and minutes of silence dragged on, eventually she took matters into her own hands. 

“I wonder if this thing plays music,” she said out of nowhere, a little louder than necessary, and started fiddling with the control panel on the dash.

This time he did turn to look at her, out of sheer confusion. Now, of all times, she wanted to listen to the radio? But then he caught the flash of one of her tools as she ducked beneath the dashboard and his foggy brain caught up with her intentions.

“Huh,” she muttered, “I think it’s faulty…” and all of a sudden the red light blinked out. She emerged from beneath the dash and straightened up with a shrug. “Definitely faulty.”

“That was… subtle,” he said drily, but it was a relief to know they could speak freely for a while.

The child popped his head out of the satchel at the sound of their voices and clambered up onto the seat beside the engineer. Nanse greeted the creature with a smile and a scratch behind the ear but when she turned back to the Mandalorian it was to fix him with a scathing frown.

“Alright,” she said. “Enough. Pull over.”

His helmet ticked in surprise. “What?”

“Pull. Over,” she repeated, slow and firm, as if she was telling the kid not to touch something dangerous. “You shouldn’t be driving.”

He huffed and squared his shoulders, staring pointedly ahead at the miles of empty desert around them. “It’s not like there’s anything to crash into out here.”

She shook her head slowly. “You know, it’s a genuine wonder you’ve lived this long.”

He ignored the comment. His single-minded focus on the job was the only thing keeping him going right now. 

When she got no response she let out a grating sigh. “You should rest. You don’t know what’s waiting for us out there. And you could barely stand in the Governor’s office.”

He’d forgotten about her steadying hand on his back. The memory made his temperature spike once more. He shook it off, filling the dent in his pride with an irritable stubbornness.

“I can drive a _speeder_. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, Mando!” she snapped, “And it’s doing none of us any favours to keep pretending that you are. You’re _dying_.”

He balked at that. It was the blunt truth but there was no need to say it out loud. Even the child seemed to shrink away from her words.

He knew he wasn’t fine. He knew the poison’s effects were getting worse, and fast. But he didn’t see any other way but to keep forging onward, however desperate and misguided that might be. To stop now would be to give up. He responded by stamping down on the accelerator, jolting them forward.

He heard her swear under her breath, and though he refused to turn to look at her he could feel her give him a long, hard stare before she ducked beneath the dash once more.

“Wait. What are you…?”

But it was already too late. There was a loud whirring sound and all acceleration power suddenly cut out, easing them to a floating stop.

The engineer sat back once more, her deadpan look matching her voice. “Oops. We seem to have broken down…”

He glared at her, fully confident that the force of his anger would transfer through his visor.

“We don’t have time for this,” he growled.

She matched his glare. “No, we don’t. Let me drive.”

He jabbed a finger at the dashboard. “Fix it. Now.”

But she seemed wholly unaffected by his threatening tone. “Is this a Mandalorian thing?” she asked conversationally. “Or is this a _you_ thing?”

“What?”

“The whole ‘I’m fine’ act.”

“You can talk,” he scoffed, nodding at her bandaged middle. She’d done exactly the same in trying to hide the extent of her injuries from him; trying to prove that she didn’t need his help. She was just like him. And she of all people should understand.

She shrugged again. “This’ll heal. You’ll be dead in two days if you don’t stop being such an idiot.”

“Stop… saying that,” he muttered, shaking his aching head.

“You can’t keep pushing yourself until you keel over!”

“I know my limits,” he muttered, fumbling beneath the dash to try to reconnect whatever it was she’d messed with.

“Do you?” she said incredulously, “Because it seems to me you’re not doing so great right now.” 

He hissed out a Mando’a curse. The bulk of his Beskar was preventing him from getting far enough under the dashboard to see properly and his injured shoulder complained a the movement. 

“Dammnit, we’re wasting time,” he barked, slamming both fists against the controls in frustration and instantly regretting it as shooting pains darted up his bad arm.

She flinched at the sudden violence of it but didn’t let up, didn’t take her eyes off him. “Look. If you collapse out there, I can’t carry you. And if you _die_ , I’m stuck here…”

His temper flared, along with another stab of pain that made him squeeze his eyes tight shut. “Well, I’m sorry this is so inconvenient for you,” he said coldly. “Maybe you should learn to fly your own ship next time.”

“Maybe I should,” she snapped back, but before they could descend even further into pettiness the child let out a high-pitched wail of protest at their behaviour, clambering over the engineer’s knees and reaching for the Mandalorian.

Din automatically lifted the baby onto his lap and the little creature gave his chestplate a slap, burbling something that sounded distinctly disapproving.

The tension in the air cooled a little, and after a few moments of silence they both spoke at the same time.

“I didn’t mean–” 

“That didn’t come out the way I meant–” 

The child looked from one face to the other with a perturbed expression and Nanse sighed, her frustration dissipating into tired resignation. She reached across and stroked the baby's head in what felt like a gesture of peace. 

“He needs you,” she said quietly. “ _We_ need you. So just… let me help. Please.”

He wished she’d stop looking at him like that. He couldn’t think straight when she looked at him like that… And he knew when he was defeated. With a grunt of effort, he pushed himself out of the driver’s seat and climbed into the back, the child tucked under his good arm.

There wasn’t enough room to lie down but he managed to find a decent enough position sitting sideways with his legs stretched out along the backseat.

Nanse waited until he was settled, an imperceptible smile of victory on her lips, and made a few tiny adjustments beneath the dash. The engine hummed back to life and she slid behind the controls, easing them onward as if nothing had happened.

He didn’t want to admit it, but it felt good to sit back and ease some of the aching in his bones. His head still spun and his fever still burned and his shoulder still felt like someone had taken a jack hammer to it, but she was right. He was running on empty.

As if she’d read his mind, she gave him a nod over her shoulder. “We’re still a while out. You can sleep if you want to.”

“I’m not going to sleep,” he replied sharply and caught her rolling her eyes at him as she turned back.

He knew he was starting to sound like a child but he didn’t know how to explain. Closing his eyes made him so dizzy he wanted to throw up, but it was more than just that. He could feel the poison like a presence in his bloodstream; in his mind. It was trying to take over. Trying to pull him under. And it was getting stronger with every beat of his struggling heart. So as much as he would have liked nothing more than to sleep, the thought also filled him with a deep, stomach churning dread.

“I’m not… trying to be stubborn,” he said. “I don’t… I can’t…”

Nanse looked at him in the mirror, brow furrowed in confusion.

He took a breath and let it out in a long exhale. “I’m afraid,” he said plainly. “I think… if I let myself fall asleep, I might not wake up again.”

She didn’t reply for a long minute and he avoided her eyes – he wasn’t sure if he could cope with any more pitying looks – focusing instead on the child beside him. The little creature was oblivious, bouncing happily against the Mandalorian’s leg as he watched the landscape whizzing past.

“Okay,” Nanse said slowly. “So, why don't you talk. It’ll help you stay awake.”

He winced. Small talk was only a few steps higher on the dread scale than actual death.

“About what?”

She thought for a moment. “How long have you been doing this?”

His tired brain was doing its best but he still drew a blank. “Doing what?”

The engineer let out a small, patient sigh. “Bounty hunting.”

 _Oh._ He’d almost stopped thinking of himself as a hunter. Had never wanted to claim it as his identity in the first place. How long since he’d started taking pucks from the Guild? Since his people had been forced into hiding; stripped of their ancestral home; made to scavenge in the shadows and hire themselves out as mercenaries to the highest bidder?

“Since the purge,” he said shortly.

She was quiet for a respectful moment. Most people didn’t know much about Mandalorian culture but they’d at least heard of the purge. And mentioning it usually had the same conversation-stopping effect. He realised he probably could have given a more palatable answer but the poison had eroded the little that remained of his social filter.

“And him?” she said, nodding at the child, who was busy climbing up the Mandalorian’s chest to get a better view over his shoulder. “Doesn’t seem like your usual bounty hunting assistant. If that’s even a thing.”

Din laid a hand on the child’s back, just in case he decided to topple backwards. “No, he’s my...”

He found himself hesitating over the word ‘son’ and chose the official explanation instead. “He’s a foundling. My covert disbanded so he’s in my charge until I can find his people.”

“Who’s his people?”

“I don’t know."

It wasn’t a complete lie. But he also didn't want to risk this line of questioning going any further. He cleared his throat, shifting awkwardly on the seat.

“How about you?” he asked her. “How long were you on R’Ossel Vorna?”

The switch in subject took her focus off the child, as he’d intended, but didn’t do much to lighten the mood. She turned back to the road with a wince.

“Almost six years,” she said, in the same tone he’d said ‘the purge’.

He hadn’t expected that. He’d figured she’d been there a while – long enough to set up her business and rack up all those pucks – but six years… No wonder she was jumpy. He wondered what the hell she’d done to get so deeply embedded in her indenture.

“Did you ever try to leave?” he said, watching her reflection in the mirror.

She gave a half-hearted smile. “Why do you think I’ve got so many bounties?”

He recognised the quip as a gentle warning to stop digging and respected the boundary with a nod, but couldn’t help his mind putting together its own hypotheses. She’d tried to escape, been recaptured, resold, gotten deeper and deeper in debt...

 _You didn’t trade in my puck_ , she’d said. _Do you know how many times that’s happened?_

_Never._

He wondered how many people had double crossed her in the past six years and felt a bubbling anger heat his blood on her behalf.

Another long silence. Then a thought hit him, and before his brain had really caught up with his mouth he blurted: “I could teach you.”

She gave him a slow quizzical look. “Teach me what?”

“To fly.”

He couldn’t give her those lost R’Ossel Vorna years back but he could give her the freedom and the means to go wherever she wanted to go.

It took her a moment to connect his offer to their previous heated exchange and she let out a soft ‘huh’ of a laugh.

“I’d like that.”

“You’d be a natural,” he added, thinking of how skilfully she’d hooked up the decoy tracker beacon to the Crest. 

She looked embarrassed at the compliment, but pleasantly so. It was an expression he hadn’t yet seen on her – almost as if she’d forgotten the feeling herself – and he found himself staring. She busied herself with checking the route on the vidscreen.

“Well. Let’s get out of this mess first, shall we?” she said.

He nodded. For a moment he’d forgotten where they were going and what they were doing, letting the poison lull him back into a hazy state of intoxication, and reality slapped like cold water.

 _If we get out of this mess_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Cappa. This is a peaceful community, remember. Surely nothing untoward could possibly happen here. Surely not... 
> 
> A bit more action coming up, more whump, more awkward Din/Nanse conversations, and probably more arguments, too, because they can't seem to interact without annoying each other... 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this little (long!) transitional chapter. Thanks for reading. :)


	13. The Ranch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diplomacy and farming.

It was mid-afternoon by the time they spotted their destination on the horizon. A cluster of buildings huddled within a rocky valley, protected from the weather, and Din could see the colony’s problem right away. The only way through the mountainous terrain was right through the middle of the ranch - any alternative route would involve trekking hundreds of miles around the gorge, adding hours and credits to their operation - and suddenly the Governor's plan made more sense. That wasn’t to say he agreed with what Andales was proposing, but at least he had a modicum of logic to bargain with.

“You think they’re really offering these ranchers a decent deal?” Nanse said as they drew closer.

She was still behind the wheel and Din was making the most of his backseat relegation to clean and prepare his weapons. He slid a disrupter bullet into his bandolier and considered the question thoughtfully.

“Depends on how you value land. Is it worth more as a transport route or a home?”

Nanse scowled out through the windshield. “Exactly. It’s a racket. And they’re getting you to do their dirty work.”

The disapproval in her voice stung a little but he couldn't deny it was the truth. “Easier for an off-worlder to do it," he shrugged. "Less paperwork, I expect.”

 _Less blood on their hands_ , he thought coldly. But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Nanse shook her head, her voice clipped and bitter. “They’re no better than the Vornians. They’re just wrapping it up in administration. R’Ossel Vorna might have been run by mobsters but at least they were open about it.” 

He finished loading his remaining bullets and pulled the strap of his bandolier tight across his chest with a snap. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, but what choice do we have? Stay in the speeder with the kid if you want.”

She gave him a warning stare over her shoulder. “I’m coming with you.”

“Okay then,” he said softly.

Nanse made a tutting sound with her tongue but didn’t press the issue. They were here now, and this was their only chance at making enough credits to pay Ama. Complaining about it wasn’t going to do any good.

As the towering valley walls began to rise up either side of them he unclipped the scope from his rifle to get a closer look at the settlement ahead.

Neat squares of farmland surrounded the buildings, some lined with crops, some left to grazing. A large farmhouse stood at one end of a yard with a barn at the other. Livestock roamed in the outer fields while the blades of a windmill turned lazily overhead. He was no agriculturalist but he recognised the signs of subsistence when he saw them. Contrary to what Andales had said, these people were doing more than just scraping by. They had everything they needed right here. And certainly no need for ‘civilisation’.

He lowered the scope with a sigh. This was going to be harder than he thought.

* * *

The child had long since fallen asleep on the backseat when they pulled up at the perimeter of the ranch and Din carefully extricated himself so as not to wake the little creature. It was best the kid stayed in the speeder. He had enough to deal with without worrying about the little one, too. 

The short rest on the drive over had helped to ease his headache and dizziness a little, but as he climbed out of the vehicle he was grateful that his armour went some way towards hiding how weak he felt. His fever had descended into a hot-and-cold clamminess, and every breath needed to be deeper than he could manage. He stopped to lean on the speeder as Nanse joined him on the dirt track.

“How’re you doing?” she asked tentatively, and he could almost feel her bracing for another bout of denial.

But he didn’t even have the energy to pretend any more. He straightened up and secured his amban rifle onto his back with a grunt of effort. “Let’s just get this over with.”

The track ended in a large wooden archway that led through to the central farmyard, and the first thing he noticed was how eerily quiet it was. Aside from the creak of the windmill and the distant lowing of grazing animals there was no sound or sign of the ranch’s inhabitants.

Every instinct told him it was a trap. And if his senses hadn’t been so clouded by poison he would have realised that long before they walked right into it.

He was less than ten paces into the yard when a resounding crack rang out and a puff of earth exploded at his feet as a bolt fizzled into static. His head jerked up to track its trajectory and he caught the glint of a scope from behind one of the chimneys of the main farmhouse.

He froze, putting one arm out to keep Nanse behind him and slowly raising the other in acknowledgement of the warning shot. He’d expected farmers, not snipers. A rush of adrenaline temporarily wiped the haziness from his brain as years of combat training took over his senses.

Behind him, he heard Nanse power up her weapon and he waved her back with an outstretched hand. “No, get back to the speeder,” he said in a rasping whisper. They were too exposed out here in the open and she had no armour to protect her. He needed to keep the focus on him.

“We’ve come to talk,” he called out, letting his vocoder amplify his words to reach all the way to the roof.

There was no reply. He scanned the settlement for other figures that might be lying in wait but without his HUD’s heat sensor it was futile. The place appeared deserted, aside from whoever was up on the rooftop, but he knew better than to trust appearances.

Still, maybe it had been a lucky shot.

He took another step.

This time the bolt hit him right in the chest. His Beskar absorbed most of the impact but it still knocked the air out of his lungs. He didn’t let it stop him – this was what his armour was made for, after all – and kept on striding forward. The sight of an advancing Mandalorian was often enough to make wannabe attackers lay down their arms, usually around the same point they pissed their pants, and he hoped they’d take the hint. He didn’t want to hurt these people if he didn’t have to.

But he barely made it three more steps when another bolt pinged off his helmet. This time he moved with the ricochet, dropping to one knee, whipping his rifle off his back and returning fire – a warning shot of his own that took off the top of the chimney and sent the shooter ducking back into cover.

The echo resounded around the empty space as he slowly rose to his feet, slotting another disrupter bullet into his weapon with practised ease. “Come down from there,” he shouted, “Or the next one won't miss.”

“Wait!” came an urgent voice from his right, and he spun to see two more figures appear from the outbuildings that edged the yard. Both were of the same orange-skinned race as Jorran – natives of Cappa, he assumed - and both were armed.

The man who’d spoken was wielding an ancient looking blaster, more rust than metal, and his anxious eyes flicked up to the roof every few seconds as he approached.

The other was barely out of her teenage years but wore a look of fierce determination as she pointed a long, electrified cattle prod at Nanse’s throat. The engineer had her own weapon raised and primed, pointing right back at the girl, and the two of them stood a few paces apart, staring at one another with matching glares. 

Din held his rifle loosely in front of him, ready to raise it at whichever target decided to make the next bad decision.

“There’s no need for this,” he said, letting his modulator even out his tone.

The man kept his blaster on the Mandalorian, needing both hands to keep the barrel from shaking.

Din remained still, gauging the situation with calm silence. He assumed the girl locked in a stand-off with Nanse was the man’s daughter, judging by the resemblance, and how nervous he seemed. The shooter on the roof was likely related, too. A family defending their home. He knew from experience that there was no motivation stronger, and no balance more precarious.

He waited to see which way the scales would fall.

“The colony sent you,” the man said, his voice loaded with loathing.

“We just want to talk.”

The farmer scoffed. “Sure. That’s why they sent a Mandalorian.”

“You’re the ones shooting at us,” Nanse muttered.

The girl jabbed the cattle prod a little closer and the engineer glowered at her.

“Easy,” Din said coolly.

“Turn around and leave,” the farmer said, adjusting his grip on his blaster. “We’ve already said no to their ‘deal’.”

Din shook his head slowly. He wanted to sympathise with the man but there was noble resistance and then there was plain stupidity. “They’ll just send somebody else…”

“We’ll be ready,” the farmer’s daughter snapped, and he could feel the tension ratcheting higher every second that passed.

In his peripheral vision he saw a shadow dart from one chimney to the next up on the roof. The figure was smaller than he’d expected – stars, was it a child? – and he studied the farmer’s nervous, desperate face anew.

“Sometimes... you can’t win,” he said, earnest now, taking a careful step towards the man. “Sometimes it's better to quit before things go past the point of no return. Think of your family–”

Another step, and another bolt from the roof, screaming through the air towards him. He barely managed to deflect it with his vambrace, his reactions dulled by the throbbing weight of the Gulkah. He reeled for a moment. A split second slower and it would have hit him in his unarmoured side.

He didn’t have time to appreciate just how good of a shot this kid was. He didn't have time for any of this. A wave of anger and frustration rippled through him and he had his rifle nocked to his shoulder before he could blink, aimed directly at the farmer’s forehead. All the colour drained from the man’s face, leaving him a pale, sickened beige.

“Tell them to lay down their arms,” Din ordered through gritted teeth, “And we'll talk.”

The man opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word a crackling buzz sounded from behind them and Nanse gave a short, cut-off yelp. Din jerked his head around to see the girl and the engineer standing motionless, the cattle prod just inches away from Nanse’s neck now. A flickering blue line of electricity arced towards her skin, as if searching out its prey...

“You first,” growled the girl, tightening her grip on the makeshift polearm. He didn’t doubt the steely look in her eye. She had none of her father’s doubt and all the naïve invincibility of youth.

Nanse’s own weapon hung loosely from its strap, her hands raised in submission. Her eyes sought out the T in the Mandalorian’s visor with a desperate glance and he could feel his hold on the situation begin to spiral out of control.

The farmer could feel it too and let his blaster fall from his shaking hands to the dusty ground. "Stop," he said in an undertone, "Everyone just stop." He seemed to deflate, his shoulders sinking and a great sigh caving his chest in defeat.

His voice was flat as he called out to the shooter on top of the farmhouse. “Carro. Come down.” 

The figure hesitated then stood silhouetted against the white sky for a few moments before ducking back out of sight the other side of the roof.

Din allowed himself a brief moment to catch his breath before turning to the girl with the cattle prod, who showed no sign of surrendering her weapon.

“Enra…” her father pleaded, “Please. Do as he says.”

She turned her glare on him but there were furious tears in her eyes, too. “No!” she barked, her voice cracking just a little. “We’re not just going to roll over and let them take _everything_ from us.”

Din watched the girl. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old but her hands weren’t shaking. And he knew the look of a warrior. She would fight until the bitter end. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach, and not because of the poison. The memory of Governor Andales’ humourless smile flashed through his head and he slowly and deliberately lowered his rifle to the ground. There was only one way to go if they kept on like this, and he was not prepared to shoot any one of them.

“There,” he said, nodding respectfully to the girl. “Now let her go.”

The light of the electric prod shimmered across Nanse’s face as she tried her best to stand as still as possible, breathing shallow and quick. Enra looked from her father to the Mandalorian and back again with a flicker of uncertainty.

“Let her go,” Din said, a little more firmly this time, “And maybe we can find a way to help you.”

For a long, agonising moment, no one seemed to breathe. Then the girl relaxed her grip on the pole and tilted it away from the engineer so it pointed straight up instead. Nanse took a tentative step backwards, then another, never taking her eyes off her opponent.

Din and the farmer let out matching sighs of relief, but before any of them could truly relax there was a squealing sound from the speeder and Enra spun around, instinctively dropping the tip of the prod and squeezing the trigger.

Time seemed to slow as the Mandalorian realised, with a nauseating coldness, that he was too far away to stop it.

The child stood ten paces away, staring up at the stranger with the glowing staff in wonder and confusion.

The farmer’s daughter realised her mistake too late, a terrible look of anguish crossing her face as electricity flared to life at the end of the pole.

"No..." Din breathed, unable to do anything but watch it play out.

And suddenly Nanse was diving through the air, wrapping her arms around the girl’s waist and shoving her sideways, sending them both slamming to the ground.

The arc of electricity shot wild, far up into the air, and Din crossed the distance to the child in a sprint, scooping him up into his arms and dropping into a defensive stance, ready for any further attacks.

But Enra simply sat in the dirt, eyes wide and glazed with shock, the cattle prod laying inert at her feet. “I’m sorry…” she murmured, and he wasn’t even sure which of them she was speaking to.

Nanse lay curled beside the farmer’s daughter, clutching at her injured side and sucking in laboured breaths as she struggled to sit up. Din moved to help her but she waved him away, looking more pissed off than he’d ever seen her. With a series of pained grunts she managed to get herself upright, shooting a scowling look at the girl and kicking the offending pole further away for good measure.

The farmer joined them, just as dazed as his daughter, and couldn't help but stare curiously at the child in Din’s arms. The child stared back and made a questioning little noise as he reached up and batted at the underside of his _buir_ ’s helmet. The man let out an involuntary laugh, then tried to swallow it when faced with the full focus of the Mandalorian’s gaze.

“Well,” the man said, clearing his throat nervously. “I think that’s enough excitement for one day.”

Din gave a short ‘humph’ out of his vocoder.

Over by the farmhouse, another girl, perhaps about twelve years old, stood to attention on the porch, a rifle half as tall as she was propped at her side.

The farmer turned to the Mandalorian with a look that Din recognised as the kind of relentless exhaustion only a parent could fully comprehend. 

“I could do with a drink," he said. "You?” 

Din shrugged, the child cooed, and the raggedy group set off towards the farmhouse in a quiet, bruised sort of truce.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quickie chapter because I have been itching to get to this section for weeeeeks and I'm all fired up by the latest episode. (No spoilers but I would die for Frog Lady.) 
> 
> I hope the action sequences make sense. Fight choreography is hard... And more OCs! I still need to come up with a name for Farmer Dad so I'm happy to take suggestions. 
> 
> Thanks for reading/kudosing/commenting as always. :)


	14. The Fathers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected tea party.

With the immediate threat of combat over, all the adrenaline had begun to bleed out of him with a coldness that brought back every ache and shooting pain twofold.

The walk across the farmyard seemed much longer than it looked, and he held the kid tight, to remind himself he wasn’t allowed to stumble or collapse.

When they reached the house, the sniper-child, Carro, ran to her father and slung her arms around his waist, looking up at the Mandalorian with a mixture of admiration and caution. 

Din tried to ignore her, leaning on the railing of the front deck in what he hoped was a casual way and not a bone-tired-and-almost-about-to-fall-down way as they waited for Nanse and Enra to join them.

When he glanced around again the little girl was still staring openly. He stared right back. This was the kid who’d landed three good shots on him. He gave a little uptick of his helmet in acknowledgement.

“You have good aim.”

She startled a little to hear him speak – the rustled flatness of his modulator – but then she gave a twist of a smile.

“You have good armour,” she replied.

“It almost wasn’t enough,” he said, remembering that final, barely-deflected shot. “But next time, cover your scope when you’re not shooting. You gave your position away.”

She looked momentarily chagrined before taking the criticism with a silent nod.

“What kind of weapon is that?” she asked him, jerking her chin at his rifle.

“Carro…” her father warned gently, clearly still wary of overstepping bounds with the Mandalorian.

But Din relaxed his body language a touch to show he wasn’t bothered by her questioning. While his own child wasn’t exactly verbal yet, he was used to the constant chatter of the younglings in the covert. His role as _beroya_ made him a target for relentless questioning about the surface world, and he could never refuse them, hidden away as they were. If you couldn’t be patient and respectful with little ones, how could you expect them to learn those attributes themselves? And asking questions was the best way to learn.

He smiled at the girl, though she couldn’t see it, and turned his shoulder slightly so she could get a better look at the rifle. “A little too powerful for you yet,” he said, just as a sickening thought struck him. If he’d been a different kind of man – or even if he’d been in a different mood – he might not have fired that initial warning shot. He might have gone for the kill. And he’d had no idea there’d been a child crouched behind that chimney.

Her father seemed to be considering the same thing and still hadn’t quite regained his full orange colour.

Din gave a tiny shake of his head, wondering at how this little girl ended up on a rooftop with a rifle in the first place. “Who taught you to shoot?” he asked her.

“My mama,” she answered immediately – both pain and pride in her voice. Her father’s eyes gravitated to the ground, a tightness to his jaw, and Din wished he hadn’t asked.

Enra and Nanse broke the awkward silence as they finally caught up. They made an unlikely pair, given they’d been at each other’s throats a few moments before, but Enra had kept pace with the injured engineer the whole way across the yard – as though she were paying a penance for being the cause of her pain. And almost frying the child with that cattle prod.

Nanse’s movements were slow and stilted, limping on her left side, her right arm curled around her ribs. Din dipped his helmet as she joined him at the railing, making no illusions about how much she needed to lean on it for support. She caught him looking and before he could ask if she was okay she held up a weary hand to cut him off. “Just… don’t.”

He decided to save any comments about irony and hypocrisy for the ride back to the base.

Enra loitered behind the engineer, attempting to maintain her practiced scowl, but then her eyes landed on the child in the Mandalorian’s arms and she suddenly looked less like a warrior and more like a farm girl – clearly wanting to reach out and stroke the little creature but unwilling to get close enough to the armoured man to do so.

“Is… he okay?” she said.

Din turned his helmet on the little creature, who was busy batting at a wind chime hanging from the porch awning, babbling excitedly every time he managed to make the metal clang together.

“He’s fine.”

She didn’t look convinced, her guilt getting the better of her, and she chewed on the inside of her lip as she watched the boy. “I didn’t mean to– I would never–”

She’d left the cattle prod where it had fallen, far across the farmyard, and a lurch of panicked memory stuttered Din’s heart as he recalled that terrible moment of helplessness, watching the electricity arc towards the kid…

The child bounced in his grip, head tilted back as far as it could go, gazing up at the shiny, twirling chimes above him. A fond, bittersweet smile lifted Din’s lips. The kid was resilient, that was for sure. And he seemed able to find joy and wonder wherever they went. He wondered if he’d ever been that way, before he became a foundling. He wondered if it was possible to regain that kind of worldview once you’d lost it. He hoped the child would never lose it... 

“He’s _fine_ ,” he repeated firmly, and this time Enra nodded in acceptance, drawing enough courage to reach out a finger and tickle the child under the chin.

The boy gave a delighted little coo and the girl’s sullen face transformed as she grinned back at him.

And, as the farmer led the way inside and Din had to gently untangle the string from the child’s three-fingered hands, he realised what the wind chime was made from. One of those spiderlike droids – its legs pulled off, dismantled, and strung up for decoration.

Or perhaps it was a warning.

Either way, he was starting to like these people.

* * *

“My name’s Kandron,” the farmer said, inviting them into a modest living area with two cushioned benches curved around a low table.

Under normal circumstances, Din would have chosen to stand, leaning against the doorframe, or in some other position that would afford him an easy view of the exits and the best span of movement for defence.

But these weren’t normal circumstances, and he sunk into the nearest seat with a barely suppressed groan. Nanse joined him, just as grateful to be off her feet, and the child stood between them, a hand on each of their legs, as if he’d found his own little throne.

Kandron and Enra took the remaining seats opposite, while Carro settled herself on the floor, resting her chin on the table that separated the two factions.

The family watched the trio of strangers in varying degrees of uncertainty, bafflement, and intrigue, and Din realised – just like Ama – they were waiting for the social etiquette of a name.

“You can call me Mando,” he said.

Kandron looked uncomfortable at the often derogatory nickname. “That seems–”

Din waved the concern away. He was used to it. People seemed to think that Mandalorians were easily offended. Or that a name could be used as a weapon. But he _was_ a Mando. Just like all his _vod_. There was no shame in being called so, even if some chose to utilise the term as an insult. And keeping his own name to himself was a vital part of the creed. _Our secrecy is our survival. Our survival is our strength._

“Mando will do.”

Kandron wasn’t about to argue the point. Instead, he turned to Nanse with a respectful but enquiring nod. “And you?”

“I’m no one,” was her flat reply.

The farmer took a deep breath and wisely decided to move on. “Enra? Will you bring us some spiced tea?”

The older girl’s scowl returned in an instant. “They’ve come to force us to sign Andales’ contract and you want to serve them _tea_?” she hissed at her father, who failed to hold in a grating sigh.

“Enra... Please.”

“I think you’ve made it very clear that we’re not gonna force you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Din said, addressing the girl directly, and he watched a momentary look of pride cross her face before she turned and huffed her way into the kitchen.

The moment she was gone, Kandron reached into a cabinet and brought out a brown, unlabelled bottle, knocking back a wincing swig before offering it to the Mandalorian. Din politely waved his refusal but Nanse leaned across him to take the bottle. He caught the eye-watering scent of some kind of liquor as she took her own long draw of the drink and handed it back to the farmer.

Carro looked up hopefully as the bottle passed over her head but Kandron hurriendly stashed it away before his eldest daughter came back.

A clattering announced Enra’s return, carrying a tray containing a steaming ornate metal teapot and a cluster of small, handle-less cups. She set the tray down on the table with more force than was probably required and sat back down with a petulant humph, task fulfilled. Carro took it upon herself to pass the cups round, making sure the child took his with both hands, but when she got to the Mandalorian he held up a hand to refuse once more and she glanced up at her father uncertainly. The farmer gave a tiny shake of his head. Enra openly glared.

Carro turned back to the armoured man and held up the cup once more. “It’s rude not to accept hospitality when you’re in someone’s home,” she said, matter of fact.

“Carro!” Kandron balked, but the little girl just shrugged.

“Well, it is.”

Din took a long, slow breath. Everyone was watching him for his reaction. Even Nanse. He leaned forward a little and the farmer instinctively laid a protective hand on his daughter’s shoulder but the Mandalorian kept his voice calm and unthreatening.

“I don’t mean to cause offence,” he explained. “I’m not permitted to remove my helmet in the presence of others.”

Carro gazed up at him, and he could almost see the cogs turning in her brain.

“But… What happens when you _sneeze_?” the girl asked.

Okay, so maybe he hadn’t seen that particular cog.

He leaned a touch closer, lowering his voice to a secretive whisper. “It’s messy.”

Carro snorted, the child gave an approving squeal, and even Nanse made a soft sniggering noise into her tea.

Enra was less impressed. “Do you want me to get you a straw?” she said in a dry tone, nodding at the last remaining cup of tea.

Kandron put his head in hands with a groan.

Din straightened up and met the teenager’s bold stare. He was used to rudeness. Used to people not understanding. And though he was well aware her offer wasn’t motivated by kindness, the truth was, he _did_ want tea. The sharp scent of the spices reminded him of the ever-burning stoves of the covert—always something hot and bubbling and ready for whoever needed sustenance—and coming home after a long mission.

Besides, it might do him some good. He was already dehydrated from the relentless fever and the recent rush of adrenaline had left his mouth dry. And if this might be his last stop before the poison took him, why shouldn’t he enjoy a little spiced tea?

He inclined his head. “Sure.”

She hadn’t expected that. None of them had. Enra’s smirk fell and her eyes widened and she sat frozen until her father made an urgent little waving motion to send her back into the kitchen.

Nanse had frozen too, her cup halfway to her lips, watching the Mandalorian with an expression somewhere between amusement and concern. Perhaps she thought he’d finally lost his mind to the poison. Maybe he had.

A few moments later, Enra came back through with a metal straw, hesitating slightly as she placed it into the remaining cup and handed it over, as though she was expecting him to pass it off as a joke, or knock it out of her hands in anger.

He took it from her with a polite nod and the room seemed to take one mutual breath in and hold it as he reached up to disengage the fastening beneath his chin. His helmet let out a hiss of depressurised air and he lifted it just enough – barely a centimetre – to carefully position the straw in place.

He felt a flush of self-consciousness wash over him as he took a sip, but his hopes for the tea were not disappointed. It was piping hot and tangy, flavoured with an earthy spice that left behind a fiery aftertaste, soothing his parched throat and settling in his stomach like a balm. He resisted the impulse to make an inhuman noise of relief and took another sip, feeling his whole body relax.

No one was even attempting to hide their curiosity at this point. The child sat in his lap and gazed up at his _buir_ in fascination, making grabby hands for the straw, wanting to try it for himself.

The Mandalorian obliged the little creature, transferring the straw into his cup, and the kid drained it in one long slurp before climbing up onto the table and tapping his claws on the teapot to demand more. And even Enra couldn’t resist a smile as she dutifully poured out another cup for the kid.

“Go easy, womp rat,” Din chided gently, “It’s still hot.”

The girls’ attention quickly shifted to the child, taking up the unspoken roles of siblings that all kids seem to do when they find themselves in a pack, but Kandron was still watching the Mandalorian with a thoughtful wrinkle of his brow.

“Who _are_ you?” the man said quietly.

Din had almost forgotten why they’d come here. He could feel the now all-too-familiar haze of the poison settling over him as the warm comfort of the tea pulled him down into exhaustion. He forced himself to keep his head up. Tried to snap his focus back into place.

He was here to ruin these people’s lives. 

“Hired help,” he said. “Just passing by.”

“Off-worlders,” Kandron nodded slowly. “That fits. Can’t be traced back to the colony.” His eyes flicked back up to the Mandalorian. “So, you’re just doing it for the money, huh?”

Din gave a small shake of his head. “We need… medical supplies,” he said, glancing sideways at Nanse. “Both of us have sustained injuries recently.”

Kandron’s brow furrowed with a kindly concern that seemed to come naturally to the man. “Well… We have a few supplies—it’s not easy to get a medic out here so I keep us stocked up–”

Din stopped him with a raised palm. “I appreciate the offer but the medicine we need is beyond the usual med kit. Hence the expense.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Carro asked.

“I have a sickness,” Din said with a sigh. “It’s not contagious,” he added quickly, as they all leaned hastily backwards, “But… it’s serious.”

 _Less than a day and a half left_ , his internal clock helpfully informed him.

A long, pensive silence enshrouded the room for a moment and everyone avoided looking directly at the Mandalorian.

Then the youngest girl nodded towards Nanse. “What about you?”

“Oh, I just got stabbed,” Nanse replied with a placid smile, lifting the hem of her shirt to reveal a flash of bandages beneath.

Enra balked and Kandron winced but Carro leaned across the table to get a better look. “Woah. Can I see? Did it hurt?”

“Alright, alright, that’s enough,” her father said, placing down his cup with a thunk and addressing each daughter in turn.

“Enra, go check the medi-kit, see if we have any pain relief for our guests. And _you_ ,” he added, turning to Carro, “Why don’t you go and clean out the duncows and bring in the jerbas? And don’t give me that look, there are still chores to be done around here. You can’t sit on the roof taking pot shots all day.”

Both girls began protesting at once but Kandron herded them out of the room, ignoring their assorted bargaining and complaining.

The foundling toddled after them, babbling sorrowfully at losing his playmates, and Carro paused at the door, looking pleadingly between her father and the Mandalorian.

“Can I at least show him the animals?”

Din was fairly sure the little girl didn’t intend any of them any harm, despite the fact that she had very much tried to shoot him in the head just half an hour previously, but he hated letting the child out of his sight. Still, he couldn’t deny the joy on the foundling’s face when he was around other children, and he couldn’t help but think of the younglings in the covert; how much the kid would have loved it there. How much he loved playing with Winta back on Sorgan...

“Of course,” he said softly. Then, to the kid: “Best behaviour, okay?”

Both children nodded in synchrony and left at a run, before their parents could change their minds. Enra rolled her eyes and affected an air of cool ambivalence as she made her own exit, heading up the stairs.

Once the children were gone, Kandron seemed to gather his strength a little, reaching back to the cabinet behind him and pouring a shot of the liquor into each of the adults’ cups.

Nanse and the farmer knocked theirs back in one. Din retrieved his straw and, against his better judgement, took a sip of the homebrew. It burned all the way down, stinging the inside of his throat and hitting his stomach like a brick. But it also took the tiniest edge off the pain in his shoulder, and he forced himself to drink down the rest. For medicinal purposes.

The farmer stowed the bottle away once more and turned back to the Mandalorian with a directness he hadn’t shown before.

“You’re not what I expected.”

Din forced himself not to look sideways at the engineer. “People rarely are.”

The farmer nodded slowly. “Tell me something, Mando. Father to father.”

Din twitched a little at the words. He couldn’t think of himself as a father. A _buir_. Didn’t think he deserved that title after all he’d done. But he sat up a little straighter, called to attention by the man in front of him.

“Look me in the eye and tell me that your life—the protection of your child—is worth more than mine,” Kandron said, searching out for some sort of acknowledgement in the darkened visor. “Tell me: who gets to decide? You? Andales? The colony? Fate? Because as far as I can see, we’re both in as deep as each other.”

The words seeped under his skin and stung there. They were no different, he and the farmer. Both just trying to keep a desperate hold on their kids’ safety. And he realised there was no way he could go through with the Governor’s request.

“You’re right,” he said shortly. “But you’re fighting a losing battle here. Why don’t you just leave? On your own terms?”

Kandron laughed tonelessly. “We have no terms. And where would we go? With what?” He gestured around the room, to the land beyond the window. “My family, my wife’s family, were here before the colony. This is _our_ land, and has been for generations. We just want to be left in peace.”

Din almost winced at the word. _Peace._ He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen such a thing in all his travels. Certainly not where colonies and credits were involved. “And what if that’s not an option?”

“I know it’s not an option,” Kandron snapped, shaking his head roughly. “You think I don’t know that? But they have no _right_ … _”_

The man’s anger seemed to scare him and he took a breath, squashed it down again, and tried to explain in a more even tone. “The colony makes its own authority. After they centralised, they started bringing in all these regulations, all these new taxes, licenses for anything outside their jurisdiction... We can barely trade on our own planet any more.”

Din wished he’d listened more to the agricultural history Jorran had been spouting off when they first arrived. And Nanse was looking more and more disgusted with every word Kendron said. She’d called it a racket, and she was right. He thought back to Ama and how nervous she’d seemed when he proposed their unorthodox deal. _Everything goes through the colony_... she’d said. It was one big money laundering operation.

Kandron stared out the window behind the visitors, and Din could hear the faint sound of the children laughing.

“They’ll do anything to move people off land they want to colonise,” the farmer said in a low, quiet voice. “Salted fields, poisoned water supply…”

The mention of poison hit a nerve and Din felt Nanse tense beside him.

“They get an incentive for every square mile,” Kandron continued, sounding about as exhausted as Din felt. “We get nothing. They talk a whole lotta bunk about their benefits and perks, but everything you earn goes right back in. Never quite enough left over to save. Or leave.”

Nanse was gripping her cup so hard her knuckles had turned white. Her face was a pale blue mask of barely restrained hatred, and Din realised with a jolt just how similar the colony and R’Ossel Vorna were beginning to sound.

Kandron must have noticed her reaction too, because it was Nanse he appealed to this time. “But I want more for my girls… There’s no future for them here but fighting the corporation. Or giving up.”

“We’ll fight,” came a voice from the doorway and Enra appeared, a handful of medical supplies in her arms and a fierce expression on her face. 

“I won’t live in that place,” she spat, jutting her chin northwards, where the colony lay sprawled.

Kandron couldn’t even look at her, his shoulders hunched, his head hanging low. “Eventually, everyone makes a deal...”

Enra stormed towards him, dumping the supplies on the table with a clatter. “You _promised_ ,” she said, and it sounded like an accusation. “You said we wouldn’t stand down.”

But Kandron seemed to have lost any defiance he once had, and he shook his head. 

“Enra... There’s no other way. We can’t start over with nothing. I have to keep you safe.”

Enra faltered a little, seeing her father so beaten down, but one last rallying thought struck her, flaring in her eyes. “If Mama was here, she’d fight,” she said quietly.

Kandron grasped his daughter’s hands and gave her a look so desperate that it made Din want to turn away.

“I know,” the farmer whispered. “But I’m not her. I’m not a soldier. And I don’t want you to have to be, either.”

As her father’s words sunk in, Enra’s expression turned blank with resignation and Din could bear it no longer. 

“Maybe you can make a better deal,” he cut in.

They all turned to look at him and he was momentarily surprised to see that Nanse’s eyes were wet with unspilled tears. She blinked them away and gave him a curious look.

”I’m not a diplomat,” he continued slowly, “but I’ll speak for you. The colony hired me to broker a solution. Maybe they’ll negotiate with me.”

He didn’t have much faith in the Governor’s sympathies but he’d been hired for his intimidation skills - perhaps he just needed to turn them the other way.

“Why would you do that for us?” Kandron asked, disbelievingly.

Din shrugged with his good shoulder. “Need the credits.”

The farmer let out something between a laugh and an exhalation, but any further discussion was swiftly ended by the whirlwind of Carro and the child barrelling back into the room.

“Papa! He ate a whole dune lizard!” the girl cried, holding up the child for all to admire. “He didn’t even chew!”

The kid reached for the Mandalorian, babbling excitedly, and Carro passed him over.

Din appraised the creature with a nod of approval. 

“A dune lizard? You’re getting quick.”

Enra and Kandron exchanged raised eyebrows but Carro was all but tugging at the Mandalorian’s arm to retrieve her playmate. 

“Can I take him up to the roof next? You can see all the way to the Eastern lakes from the top!”   
  
“We’d better be heading back,” Din said, getting to his feet and tucking the child into the crook of his arm. “Come on, you need to sleep all this excitement off.”

Nanse followed suit, still a little hindered in her movements, and Kandron gathered up the medical supplies Enra had brought down. He passed them over to Nanse as they reached the doorway, lingering on the porch as the strangers stepped back out into the darkening farmyard. 

“I hope these help a little,” he said, gesturing at the two analgaesic syringes in Nanse’s hands.

“And I’m sorry for your sickness,” he added, nodding at Din with a tight look. “There’s a good medic at the trade hub, but she’s expensive.”

Din let out a soft huff. “We’ve met.”

Kandron nodded, but his eyes had taken on a distant look. “I lost the girls’ mother to an infection, four cycles ago. The colony centralised its healthcare and the prices were so high, by the time we raised the funds... it was too late.”

Din lowered his helm respectfully. ”I’m sorry.”

Kandron forced a smile but it was full of grief. “She loved it here. She’d served her time in the war. Came back to live in peace. And then...” He gave a tiny shrug of helplessness. 

Din didn’t know what to say. Knew there was nothing he could say that would mean anything in the face of such loss.

The farmer shook his head, his voice dropping to a hushed whisper. “There’s so much of her in the girls. It scares me.”

Din swallowed the lump in his throat. Thought of Carro with her rifle, up on the roof. Enra with her cattle prods, prepared to fight to the death...

“Your daughters are brave,” the Mandalorian said, as firmly as he could. “And your family is strong. Whatever happens, you'll take care of one another.”

Kandron nodded again, his jaw tight, but he couldn’t meet the Mandalorian’s eye.

”And I’ll do what I can to help you,” Din added.

He had no idea how, but he would try, at least. If it was the last thing he did.

And it probably would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo. Here’s a mini homage to our favourite tea sipping yodito and that flash of Din-chin last episode! 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this brief domestic interlude before all the shit hits the fan again. The clock is ticking, Mando... 
> 
> Oh, and thank you to @PeonyWheeler3 for suggesting the name Kandron for farmer-dad. Here’s your very own OC to love and take care of. :)
> 
> P.S. This probably needs a final proofread/edit but I am impatient and wanted to get it posted before yet another episode passes me by and confuses my made up canon. So apologies for any typos and glaring errors. I’ll get to em shortly.


	15. The Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din pays the price for drinking on the job, Nanse gives terrible pep talks, and the gang pays Governor Andales a visit...

The sun had begun to set behind the mountains as they headed back to the East Base, casting the scrubland in a deep purple shadow. The rain was holding off for now but dark clouds gathered on the horizon like a tidal wave and Din couldn’t help but see it as an omen.

Nanse had taken the driver’s seat without discussion and he had been too tired to argue. He was bone tired—the kind of exhaustion that no amount of rest would fix—and the brief moment of respite in the farmhouse had done nothing to quell the pounding of his head or the churning nausea in his stomach.

He sat beside her in the passenger seat, trying to clear his mind, trying to pretend that this moment was all there was—no future filled with fear and pain, no uncertainty, no worry—just the quiet hum of the speeder engine and the falling coolness of the night. To trust that whatever happened was The Way. 

The landscape streaked by in a dizzying smear that was too much for his tired eyes, so he focused on the child instead, stroking a line down the baby’s forehead until its eyes began to waver and close. But without his bracer to keep it in place, the repetitive movement gradually pushed his right sleeve up to reveal a stripe of bare arm—white splintered veins crosshatching across his skin, brighter and thicker than before. He paused at the sight. It was getting worse. He could almost feel the pulse of the poison doing its work as it flowed through him.

He tugged his sleeve back down quickly, but not before Nanse glanced over at the movement. She didn’t say anything but her eyes took on a distant edge as she turned back to the road ahead, as if she was seeing beyond it—beyond the next twenty-four hours, and the inevitabilities that lay there.

“So,” she said quietly. “That didn’t go to plan.”

He sighed, tucking the sleeping child back into the satchel and settling him on the backseat. His shoulder complained at the stretch, as if his joints had rusted, and his voice came out like gravel.

“No. it didn’t.”

He could tell she was restraining herself. Choosing her words carefully. He wondered if she was regretting not leaving when she had the chance.

“What are you gonna say to Andales?” she asked lightly. As if all their combined fates didn’t rest upon the coming confrontation.

He shook his head wearily. “I… don’t know.”

It was the empty truth. He was no orator. No negotiator. He spoke what he felt and he wasn’t one for planning speeches. He would deal with it when the man was in front of him but he couldn’t think about facing the Governor right now. It was taking all his energy to breathe through the rising nausea that was threatening to climb his throat.

Nanse snuck another sideways glance at him. “We don’t have a lot of time…”

“I _know_ ,” he said through gritted teeth. He was aware of every passing minute. Every second wasted. Every single moment that drained a little more from him.

He let out a shaky breath as his fever spiked and he realised with a horrible certainty that the sickness wasn’t going to pass this time.

He dug his fingers into his thighs to steady himself as a cold flush swept through him, as if all the blood in his body had suddenly drained away. His stomach clenched and he folded forwards, bracing himself against the dashboard, breathing in short, sharp gasps.

He could feel the engineer’s eyes on him but he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything but concentrate on keeping down the churning storm in his belly. Throwing up in one’s helmet was not generally recommended, and the logistics of safely dealing with such things were something of an ongoing discussion within the Mandalorian community, but there wasn’t time or opportunity to explain that to Nanse.

This was happening. Right now.

“Stop,” he barked, slamming a hand on the dash, desperately trying to hold the surge at bay. “Stop the speeder!”

The engineer braked so hard the speeder turned into a floating skid, angling sideways across the track, and Din was out—half climbing, half falling—before it had even come to a halt.

“Stay here,” he ordered, waving an arm blindly behind him as he stumbled behind a nearby boulder in a vain attempt to gain the privacy he needed. He barely made it, slumping to his knees in the dirt and shoving his helmet up over his mouth and nose just in time to empty the contents of his stomach onto the muddy ground. Waves of sweat rolled across his skin, cooling instantly in the evening air and leaving him shivering as another assault ripped through his guts. Then another. And another. 

By the end of it, he was bent double, propped up on one forearm, heaving and grunting until there was nothing left but acid and cramps.

He kept a shaky hand hovering beside his helmet, ready to yank it back down if he heard footsteps behind him, but there was only the sound of his own harsh breathing and the rapid thud of his heartbeat.

He guessed Nanse must have heard it all anyway. He appreciated the fact that she knew well enough to leave him in peace but wondered how long she’d wait before coming to check on him if he just passed out right here…

“ _Dank ferrik_ ,” he muttered, leaning back against the boulder to catch his breath. His mouth tasted like the inside of his boots and his stomach muscles felt as though they’d been wrung out, but the nausea had passed. For now, at least.

He coughed weakly, suddenly desperately thirsty, but the memory of Enra’s tea and the ill-advised shot of liquor made his stomach convulse all over again. He guessed the alcohol hadn’t helped. Or maybe he was past the point of keeping any liquids down at all. Either way, it was not a good sign.

He was running out of time.

He sighed, wiped his face with the back of his sleeve, and reluctantly re-secured his helmet. It was something of a relief to be back within the safe anonymity of his helm but he was finding it harder and harder to breathe through the filtration system. Harder to breathe, period. He could hear the rasp of it. Taste blood and bile in his throat. The poison was coming at him from all sides now and he wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take.

He made a half-hearted attempt at sitting up but the horizon slid sideways and his head thunked back against the rock. He closed his eyes, clawing his hands into the mud by his sides to root himself.

Maybe he could just rest here for a bit. Just a minute. Until the world stopped lurching and his heartbeat slowed down. Just one... more... minute...

_Get up. Get moving. Get it done._

His eyes flinched open. He wasn’t sure if the voice in his head was his own or some kind of hallucinatory symptom but he heeded it nonetheless. 

He tried again, more carefully this time, and made it to his knees, then a low crouch, and finally pushed himself back up to his feet with a grunt.

_Now, one step at a time._

He nodded in affirmation of the order, his head so light it felt as though the whole sky was spinning around him, and made his way, step by cautious step, back to the speeder.

He avoided Nanse’s worried looks as he dropped heavily into the passenger seat.

“Let’s go,” he croaked.

“Are you–?” she began, but he cut her off with a sigh and a raised hand.

“Just… drive. Please.” 

She stared at him for a long, piercing second, then shook her head. “I swear, if you tell me you’re fine one more time…” she muttered, easing the speeder back on track.

He didn’t answer. He was far from fine and they both knew it.

They drove in silence a while longer, though he could see the tension in Nanse’s face; could practically feel the frustration peeling off her like steam. He glanced over his shoulder at the gently snoring child on the backseat and it suddenly occurred to him that Ama’s two-day estimate hadn’t been specific about whether he’d be functional—or even conscious—for the whole duration. 

“How much worse is it going to get?” he said quietly.

She shook her head again, sharply this time, a clear refusal of the question.

“Tell me,” he said, forcing the words out of his sore throat. “I need to know.”

Nanse didn’t take her eyes off the road, her voice flat and toneless. “I’ve only seen it happen once. The slow way, I mean.”

He swallowed thickly. _The slow way_. He’d met a lot of twisted, murderous folk in his time but the mobsters of R’Ossel Vorna really took the prize.

“He was running from a bounty,” Nanse continued, her words stilted, as if she was reluctant to speak them aloud. “Came looking for sanctuary but tried to cheat his way out of the contract. They caught him. Cut him with poisoned blades. Said they’d triple his debts in exchange for the antidote and then… they let him go. Gave him two days to ‘think about it’.”

Her voice took on a certain stiffness whenever she spoke about R’Ossel Vorna. Her whole body seemed to tense, as if preparing for attack. It made his hackles rise, too—an unconscious urge to protect her.

She paused, gathering herself, her hands tightening around the controls. “By the end he was delirious with pain. Hallucinating. His skin was like yours,” she said, nodding at his bracer-less wrist, her eyes lingering there for a second before trailing up to his visor. “He was begging for death.”

Din held her gaze. He wasn’t sure what he’d hoped to hear. He certainly hadn’t expected anything pretty. But he wasn’t prepared for the look in her eyes—somewhere between disgust and pity—and he was the first to look away.

“Did they give him the antidote?” he asked, already knowing the answer before she gave it.

“They gave him Galkah,” she said coldly. “The real stuff. Not the poison. Said it was a privilege—to drink like a king before he died.”

He let out a soft ‘huh’ of… he didn’t know what. Resignation, perhaps. He was already half way to his death sentence and there was only worse to come but his brain was too tired to properly comprehend it.

Instead, a sideways thought put words in his mouth. “What does it taste like?”

She looked at him strangely. “Galkah? It’s… sweet. And a little acidic.”

She spoke as if she knew, first hand—not simply reporting a fact. He mirrored the curious tilt of her head. “You’ve tasted it?”

She gave a tight smile. “Once,” she said, “To seal my ‘contract’.”

She turned back to the road and he studied the fixed expression of her profile. Her tense jaw. Her glistening eyes. The ripple of her throat as she swallowed.

He wanted to ask how she’d ended on that hellish moon. Where she’d come from. What secrets she was holding onto with such a death grip. And which was worse—accepting a drink you knew might kill you, or the prospect of a life of servitude if it didn’t?

But he didn’t have the words. And he could tell he’d already overstepped some invisible boundary.

“Thank you,” he said, instead. “For helping me. For protecting the child.”

She nodded awkwardly, then seemed to wince at the memory of tackling Enra to the ground, tucking her arm in against her injured ribs.

“That was quite a dive,” he remarked, his visor hid the faint smirk that crossed his lips. “Maybe you should take some of that pain relief Kandron gave you…”

She rolled her eyes so hard he thought they might get stuck but she had no helmet to hide the faint trace of her own smile.

“Ah, I forgot,” he said softly, “You’re fine. I’m fine. We’re both fine.”

Her smile grew, but her expression remained distant—and just a little sad. “Maybe we should both stop almost dying, huh?”

A harsh, rasping laugh escaped his vocoder. “That’s the plan.”

* * *

It was dark by the time they made it back to East Base but the domes of the colony glowed against the black sky. It was almost inviting, and the strange, psychotropic nature of the poison made the lights flare and split into myriad spectrums, wavering and dancing in his vision—at once far away and right in front of him. He shook the illusion out of his head, wishing he could rub his dry, tired eyes and grind his knuckles into the ache in his temples.

He could feel Nanse’s eyes on him as he grunted his way out of the speeder and secured his rifle and the child’s satchel across his shoulders. His whole body wanted to hunch in on itself, his Beskar feeling three times its usual weight, but he forced himself to stand up straight. If he was going to do this, he needed to do it as a Mandalorian.

_Get moving. Get it done._

He imagined it was the Alor’s voice. His _buir_ ’s voice. The whole of the Tribe behind him, pushing him on. Keeping him upright. One foot in front of the other. Eyes fixed ahead. Letting all the anger and frustration of the past few days fuel him.

He barely registered Nanse following behind, close enough to right him if he stumbled, but wise enough not to try to stop him.

This time he didn’t break stride when the weapons alarm started blaring. He walked right on through the entrance to the base, ignoring the startled cries of the colonists blurring around him, scanning the crowd for a face he recognised. It didn’t take long for Jorran to appear, drawn to the commotion and the wailing siren of the door scanners, and the official approached the visitors with outstretched palms and a horrified expression.

“Please, you must leave your weapons at the–”

But Din was past the point of protocol and he grabbed the man by the collar the moment he was close enough. “Take me. To Andales,” he growled.

Jorran stared up at the Mandalorian with a mixture of outrage and outright terror, but before he could consider testing his luck any further Nanse’s cool voice cut through the tense air.

“I’d do as he says.”

Joran’s eyes flicked over to the engineer, then down to the gloved fist holding tight to the front of his tunic, and gave a panicked wave towards the scanners.

“Turn it off!” he said, in a high, strangled voice. The alarm silenced almost instantaneously.

Din released him, aftershock echoes of the siren still reverberating inside his helmet, and nodded pointedly down the corridor.

Jorran took the hint, setting off towards the Governor’s office at a brisk pace, barking at any unlucky colonist who happened to be in the way. Din was glad of the guide—he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to remember the route through the labyrinth of the colony even without the brain fog, and the journey seemed to last forever as he remembered just how badly the heat of the base worsened his fever.

Jorran attempted to uphold his usual professionalism as they reached their destination, knocking sharply on the door and giving the Mandalorian a disapproving look. “Let me check if he’s able to–” the official began, then gabbled into stupefied silence as Din barged past him and right into the office.

Andales was at his desk, just as before, the projected holo map of the colony and its expansion plans hung above him, casting the man in a sickening, wavering green light.

He hardly looked surprised to see the armoured figure striding towards him, solidifying Din’s suspicions about their close surveillance. If anything, the Governor looked pleased, greeting his visitors with a wide, practiced grin.

“Ah, back so soon. We’ve been worried about you, out there in the wilderness,” Andales said, “It seems the comm link in your speeder was… faulty.”

The last part was directed pointedly at Nanse, who stared back at him with a flat expression. The Governor’s smile grew a touch sharper and he turned his attention back to the Mandalorian.

“I trust all went well? You managed to convince them to move on?”

Din squared his shoulders and aimed the glare of his helmet at the man. “No.”

The Governor let out a short, toneless laugh. “No?”

“They have no wish to join the colony,” Din said evenly, “The deal’s off, unless you can offer them a better alternative.”

Andales stared at him for a long moment, studying the black T in his visor with a shrewd eye. The Mandalorian stood motionless—his interior world swirling but the weight of his Beskar keeping him rooted—and waited for the other man to respond.

The Governor broke their eyeline first, picking idly at the paperwork in front him. “Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed. I had hoped we could fulfil the terms of our arrangement with you _and_ the homesteaders, but I’m afraid there will be no payment without completion of the job…”

“Let us renegotiate, then,” Din cut in, his voice hardening, sharpened by his modulator. “Leave these people alone. Build your road someplace else. Or give them fair recompense to move on, start anew.”

Andales gave a deep, theatrical sigh. “You make it sound so simple, Mando. But these people are in direct violation of Cappa law. They have repeatedly ignored the mandates on independent settlements, they have been issued several warnings and increasingly generous offers for their land, and yet they still insist on acting as if we are engaged in some sort of war.”

The Governor paused to take a breath and sighed again, leaning back in his chair. “Besides, it’s out of my hands now. After tomorrow, it’ll be up to the higher authorities.”

“What authorities?” Din snapped.

Andales blinked at him like he was an idiot. “As I said before, we are the leading distributor across the outer rim. Under the Empire we were on the verge of making strides towards the inner clusters, but, well, things are a little more _in flux_ now, I suppose you could say…”

Din flinched involuntarily at the mention of the Empire. Nanse tensed beside him.

“Empire’s gone,” he said shortly.

The Governor’s smile flattened. “Yes, well, that’s as may be. But much of its administrative groundwork remains within galactic commerce circles. You can’t deny that when it comes to outreach and centralisation they knew what they were doing. From a strictly business point of view, of course.”

Din’s back teeth ground together as he restrained himself from diving across the desk, right through the holo map, and showing the man the outreach of his fist—from a strictly business point of view.

Andales didn’t seem to notice the sudden change in mood. Or perhaps he didn’t care. He affected a regretful look and spread his arms wide, his fingers glitching through the virtual display.

“The fact is,” the Governor continued, “We own the rights of thoroughfare through their land and they have passed the point at which they could have brought a case against us. They may be able to take it up at a tribunal but there’s currently a six-month backlog, so it’s best all round if they’re relocated to the colony and I’m sure once they’re settled they’ll forget all about it…”

Din’s head pulsed with the overload of sheer banthashit the man was spewing. He couldn’t stop picturing Enra, her eyes full of righteousness, promising her father she would fight. Little Carro shouldering her Mama’s rifle. He’d have bet any amount of credits that their mother hadn’t been on the Empire’s side in the war.

His hands curled into fists at his side. He wasn’t sure if it was his own outrage firing his veins or the nuclear heat of the fever but his vision was beginning to bleed black at the edges. He took a step towards the desk—the only piece of furniture in the room he could steady himself on—and thudded two heavy fists down on the worktop.

“You’re not listening,” he growled. “They’re armed. They’ll fight. This will end in bloodshed.”

Andales gave a condescending smirk. “You think every settlement on Cappa welcomed assimilation? We may be a non-violent community but we still have ways of safely subduing threats. We certainly don’t aim to harm them. We simply want to show them how much better life can be within the colony. And eventually, _everyone_ makes a deal.”

The echo of Kandron’s words resonated through Din’s helmet like a bell but the threat in Andales’ voice was implicit.

He braced himself against the desk, back arching slightly as his stomach turned over again, a whooshing light-headedness almost dropping him to his knees. He fought through it, clenching his jaw tight and breathing long and slow until his vision cleared and the nausea passed. Throwing up all over the Governor’s desk would probably not have been a power move. 

He lurched back, straightening up and taking a few unsteady steps away. 

The Governor watched him with a curious frown. “I have to say I’m less than impressed by your intimidation techniques, Mando. I had expected better from you…”

Din didn’t rise to the pride-laced bait. He just wanted the man to shut up. He wanted Nanse’s cool hand on the small of his back, holding him upright, but she was distracted—staring past his shoulder at the green holo map that hung above the desk. It was all a blur through Din’s watering eyes. A maze of lines that glowed like lasers, piercing deep into his headache. He wanted to smash the desk controls. Either that or unload his pulse rifle into the smug face on the other side of the display.

Andales steepled his fingers together and feigned a thoughtful look. “But look… since you’re so passionate about the cause, why don’t we try one more time? I’d like to hire you. As a bounty hunter this time. Unfortunately I can’t pay Guild rates but I _will_ pay promptly, and from what I gather you are rather short on time…”

Din froze, the last remnants of his survival instincts zeroing in on the man. Nanse’s head snapped up to do likewise. 

A smile curled at the edges of the Governor’s lips.

He _knew_. About the poison. And he was toying with them.

Din’s mind whirled with what lay beneath the surface of the jibe. Had Ama talked? Did they know about Nanse, too? And the child? How the kriff did he find out–

His answer took the form of one of those odious little spider droids, which crawled up over the back of the Governor’s chair to perch on his shoulder, blinking the aperture of its red eye at the Mandalorian.

Surveillance droids. Everywhere. Like vermin. And they’d been watching the whole time—from Ama’s place to the bar to the colony… Andales had heard everything.

Din’s breath hitched as he swallowed down a surge of nausea. He took another step back, fists clenched so tight the leather of his gloves creaked. They had to get out of here. They had to get out of here now–

The Governor seemed pleased with the Mandalorian’s obvious discomfort. All traces of his false smile had disappeared. He gave a sharp wave of his hand, zooming the holo display in on Kandron’s ranch once more.

“Bring them to me,” Andales demanded. “Before dawn. And the colony will provide you with the everything you need: fuel, supplies, medicine...”

Din took another step backward. 

“I promised them a better deal,” he said, so quiet it was almost to himself.

Andales rolled his eyes. “It’s just one ranch. What can it possibly mean to you? Do you care whose puck you’re chasing when you take on a bounty? No. This is business, Mando. Nothing more.”

Din could feel Nanse’s gaze shift to him. And through the hopelessness and the fear and the pain, his anger flared—hot and bright and blazing. He’d made a promise—father to father—and he intended to keep it.

He shook his head slowly. “They’re just children.”

“No,” the Governor smiled coldly. “They’re future colonists.”

He only realised he’d drawn his blaster when he felt Nanse’s hand on his forearm. The skin beneath her grip burned and his whole arm jolted in response.

Andales let out a shaky laugh. “You’re going to shoot me? Go ahead. I am unarmed. There are no weapons in the colony. And then what will you do? Need I remind you that Cappa-Zero-Nine is a peaceful community? Do you plan to shoot us all? I daresay even the New Republic would have something to say about that…”

Nanse squeezed his arm and he let it drop, fumbling his blaster back into its holster, trying not to hiss at the pain of his poisoned skin.

“Take the job,” the Governor said shortly. “Get paid. Get your medicine. Get your Beskar back,” he added with a knowing smirk. “There’s still time…”

But Din was already turning towards the door, before he did something he truly regretted. “No...” he muttered.

He heard Andales get to his feet behind him. “Last chance, Mando…”

He reached the door and paused, his back to the Governor. “I said, _no_.”

“Then you have no right to dock on Cappa,” Andales snarled. “And you will leave within the day.”

Din paused, looking wearily over his shoulder. “Or what?

A vicious smile split the Governor’s face. “Or die planetside and have all your belongings revoke to the colony. Beskar, ship and all that’s inside it.”

He almost gave in. It would have been so easy to swing his rifle off his back and empty the chamber into the man’s chest. No more Governor. Gone in an instant. But he was right. it would solve nothing besides perhaps easing the buzzing pressure in his head. 

He leaned against the doorframe for a moment, rallying the strength to do what he needed to do.

A promise. A father. A home. A child, just like his. Two of them.

He sighed. This was the Way.

On one side, he felt a tiny hand reach out of the satchel and tug on his sleeve. On the other, a firm palm pressed against his shoulder.

“Let’s go,” Nanse whispered.

He nodded. Pushed the door open. And didn't look back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is for those of you who were scandalised by Din drinking liquor last chapter... Look what you did to the poor man!
> 
> So, I know this was a convo-heavy chapter but I’m gonna be tying up the ends of this particular arc of the story with some action soon. I mean, we're on a serious countdown now and surely there's no way out of this, right? RIGHT? 
> 
> You'll have to wait until after Christmas for the big finale but until then I hope you're all safe and warm and have all you need to get through whatever the heck the rest of this year has in store for us. Thank you as always for the spirit-lifting comments and kudos. It truly makes my day. 
> 
> x


	16. The Last Resort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din's trippin' balls y'all...

He didn’t remember much of the speeder journey back to the ship. Just flashes of consciousness and confusion in amongst the pain. He’d naively thought he’d be able to handle it. He was used to pain—had been trained and conditioned to endure it. To withstand torture. To perform his own medical procedures. To never assume he would have anyone else to rely on but himself. To push through and keep moving. He’d been shot and stabbed and strangled and beaten. He’d broken bones, fallen sick, fought through fevers and been knocked out more times than he could count, but none of it compared to this. It was like everything he’d ever suffered, all at once, swamping his senses and removing his ability to think clearly for longer than a few minute at a time. Just flashes of clarity, slow-blinking in and out.

The black maw of the night sky, hanging overhead. The glowing domes of the East Base disappearing behind them. The vibrations of the speeder engine cutting through his aching bones like a saw. Nanse glancing behind her every so often to check he was still conscious. The child pulling at his arm with a mournful cooing noise.

He tried to hold back the darkness for a moment, focusing everything on the little green creature at his side. The boy tapped his bracer-less forearm and Din realised what he wanted with a sinking feeling. The kid had tried to heal him before, back when they’d first landed on Cappa, but he’d pulled away. Snapped at him. Made him cry. He still had no idea if it was possible, or if the poison would somehow transfer to the child, but a dull part of him was desperate enough to let him try, and the rest of him was just too tired to try to stop him.

The kid was fussing at him, climbing out of the satchel to get closer, little claws hooking beneath his shirtsleeve. Peeling back his sleeve felt like driving needles into his skin. The white splintered veins stood out like raised threads in the dim light and the sight made his stomach turn.

 _By the end, he was begging for death_ , Nanse had said. He was starting to realise why. 

The child reached out to touch his arm but recoiled before he made contact, whining uncertainly, as if the fever running through his skin might burn. As if he could sense the darkness within. The little creature turned his eyes up to Din’s helmet with a terrible fearfulness and shuffled backwards, as far away as he could get on the backseat of the speeder.

“Hey,” Din murmured softly, “It’s okay,” but his heart dropped into his stomach as the kid refused to come any nearer.

It wasn’t okay. None of it was okay.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to quieten the gallop of his heart. He had been afraid of closing his eyes before but he couldn’t remember why. The pain and the sickness had put an end to that. There was no chance of him sleeping now—not when every breath strained his lungs and every movement felt like trying to climb out of ice water. But while the relief of unconsciousness might be an impossibility, the poison was still doing its best to pull him under, his overfired brain struggling to stay afloat amidst the bombardment of senses and colours and haze all around.

And yet, somewhere within the fog there glowed a tiny ember of urgency, so faint he had to focus everything he had left so as not to lose sight of it. A sharp point in his chest that jabbed at him every time he came too close to slipping away. There was something he had to do. Something vitally important.

The child. Protect the child. But not just his child. Kandron’s girls. The warrior children. The younglings of the covert. _The children are the future_. His boy, holding back a mudhorn, holding back a firetrooper, cowering in the corner from the poison in his veins. The Armourer pressing a sigil to his pauldron. A clan of two. _You are as his father._ Protect him.

The ember flared brighter. Someone had mentioned the Empire. Someone was tracking them. Nanse’s tracker. Nanse, pointing a gun at him. No, Nanse helping him. Nanse’s hand on his back, on his arm, on his shoulder, Nanse’s eyes on him, Nanse in pain, trying to hide it, just like him. He had to protect her too, but he wasn’t sure from what.

A flash vision of Knives’ jagged teeth made him wince. An explosion. Electricity, shattering his bones. The clang of metal footsteps. Being jostled in his father’s arms as they ran from the droids. Hiding his face from the horrors behind them. Darkness. Alone. Then suddenly, light. A hand reaching out. Clinging to cold Beskar, soaring skyward, terrified and exhilarated and relieved and guilty all at once. A pain in his chest so deep he could barely draw breath– 

“We’re here.”

His eyes flew open to find Nanse twisted in her seat, staring back at him with a cautious expression. For a second he had no idea where ‘here’ was. Why it was so dark outside. Why they’d stopped. Why she was frowning at him. The thundering of his pulse was making his vision close in like an aperture, picking out every tiny detail in front of him and blurring out the rest.

Maker, her eyes were _so very_ blue. He could see every single eyelash…

She leaned further forward, one hand hovering above his knee, as if she was reluctant to touch him. “Mando? Are you awake?”

He realised he still hadn’t replied. Hadn’t moved. Shown no sign he was even still alive. But he had forgotten how to.

Nanse cast a worried look towards the kid and then back at him. She was so close the air around them seemed to bulge inwards and a halo of light appeared around the outline of her figure, sending ripples of shining waves through her hair and raising a million pinprick motes of reflected light from the surface of her skin.

He took in a splintered gasp of a breath at the sight and both she and the kid jumped. When he turned to look at the kid, the same glow was surrounding him too, except the child’s had a greenish tint instead of Nanse’s blue.

“You… you’re… light,” was all the words he could manage to string together.

Nanse’s frown deepened. “Right…” she said slowly.

He blinked and the world came back into harsh, stark focus. The glow disappeared into the darkness and all that remained was the engineer, perhaps a little paler than usual and looking at him like he was insane, but no longer emanating her own personal starlight.

He pushed himself up from his slumped position in the backseat, avoiding her concerned eyes. “Right,” he muttered. “I was…” but he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Dreaming? Hallucinating? Going completely insane? He shook his head. “Never mind.”

The kid gave an anxious whine and skirted around his _buir_ to hold his arms up to the engineer. She scooped him up, still eyeing the Mandalorian as she pressed the release on the speeder canopy.

The rain had started up again, and the sudden shock of the cold night air made him shiver. It was a bizarre contrast to the burning heat of his skin and he half expected steam to start rising from his armour. He was sure his fever should have reached its peak by now but his temperature seemed to still be rising and his head spun as he climbed out after Nanse and the kid.

Up ahead, looming in the dark, was the familiar bulk of the Razor Crest. It should have been a relief to be back but somehow it only felt one step closer to the end. He opened the side ramp with his bracer controls and lingered behind as Nanse took the kid on board, distracted by the rhythm of the rain on his Beskar, still blinking the afterimage of the glowing lights out of his head.

Nanse was settling the kid in the bunk by the time he made it up the ramp. He leaned heavily against the doorframe, breathing hard from the short walk, and tried not to think about the way the child had cowered away from him. The fear on his little face.

He could hear Nanse whispering something soft and reassuring as she tucked the kid into his hammock and a sudden surge of sickness hit him as he considered the fact that he might not get to do that ever again.

He ducked into the fresher and slammed a palm against the lock mechanism as he fell to his knees for the second time that night. At least this time he could safely take his helmet off, but unlike last time, he had nothing left to throw up, so simply had to suffer wave after wave of cramps as his body tried earnestly to expel a poison that refused to let go of him. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, kneeling on the cold grating floor of the fresher, but eventually he managed to pull himself upright, slumping over the basin as he gathered the strength to look at his own face in the mirror.

For a second he thought he was hallucinating again as he glanced down into the sink and saw it was full of blood. He jerked backwards, rebounding off the opposite wall of the tiny cubicle with a clang and knocking a bottle of cleaner off the countertop. He steadied himself on the basin as the memory came back to him and he dipped one hand into the bloody water to fish out a fistful of soaked fabric—Nanse’s shirt, or perhaps his own, bleached back to white, just as he said it would.

A laugh barked out of him. He wasn’t even sure why it was funny—it wasn’t funny at all—but for some reason it was the saddest and most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen. He stopped abruptly when his gaze crept up to the mirror. The eyes that met him there were bloodshot and hollow. White veins climbed up his neck like creeping vines and when he wincingly pulled back the collar of his flight suit he could see the skin of his shoulder had turned a deep, bruised purple.

He laughed again—there was nothing else to do at this point—but it had an empty, jagged tone. 

A knock at the door made him jump. “What’s going on?” came Nanse’s voice, and he could only imagine how it all sounded from outside the fresher.

He stifled another snorting laugh as he drained the basin, rinsed and hung up their clean shirts. “Nothing,” he replied, his voice ragged and raw from the latest assault of sickness. “Just… housekeeping.”

“ _What_?”

He shoved his helmet back on and opened the door to find exactly the confused and concerned expression he was expecting.

She looked him over with slow suspicion and decided not to bother asking for clarification. Instead, she held out one of the syringes Kandron had given them.

“Here. Take this.”

He considered it for a moment before concluding with dull resignation that it would barely take the edge off. An utter waste of such a precious commodity.

He let his helmet tilt to the side, giving her the same once over she’d given him. She looked exhausted, too. And stressed, and worried, and beaten down by her own injuries. But here she was, once again, trying to help. He added an extra layer of guilt to the weight on his shoulders.

“I will if you will,” he replied, and couldn’t help but enjoy the long-suffering sigh and rolled eyes he got in response.

“Fine,” she said flatly, pulling up her sleeve and administering the syringe to her forearm with a hiss. She tried to play it off cool but as the shot took effect he watched her shoulders sink a little lower and her breathing deepen, letting out an almost imperceptible noise of relief on each exhale.

He nodded in approval then moved to step past her but she stopped him with a palm to his chestplate, fixing him with a warning look.

“Now it’s your turn.”

He looked down at her hand with a hazy sort of curiosity. Everything felt light and heavy at the same time. Slow and fast. His heart was stuttering as if he’d been running but every blink seemed to last a minute. He’d half-forgotten the question. Was there a question? She wanted something from him. There must be a reason she was touching him. And it wasn’t that he disliked the feeling, but he had something important he had to do—if he could just remember what it was.

He reached up and gently removed her hand, a twitch of a smile lifting the corner of his mouth as he felt her fingers reflexively tighten around his own for a second.

She wasn’t smiling, though. She looked so angry she might cry. And then she was hitting him with something metal—a hypo syringe—slamming it against his chestplate once, twice, before it rebounded out of her hand and spun across the floor of the hold.

He stood motionless, still not understanding what was happening, waiting to see what she might do next. She was swearing now, under her breath, in a choked sort of voice, and digging in her bag for something, frantic and frustrated. He was about to offer to help her when she pulled out another syringe and he readied himself for a second assault. She didn’t hit him with this one, though—instead she held it out to him with a desperate look.

“Take it. Please. Just… take it.”

He’d gotten so used to the pain now that sometimes it seemed as if it floated above him, separate from his consciousness, like his own personal thundercloud. But as the context of their conversation came slamming back into him, so did the agony of his shoulder and the tidal wave crash of his fever and the aching in his bones and all the sharp edges of reality that the poison had tried to hide from him.

He missed the part where everything had seemed funny.

He hated being the cause of her anger but he could only shake his head at the offering.

“Save it. You might need it.”

A grating sound of exasperation escaped her throat. “But you _do_ need it. Right now.”

“No,” he said softly. And he could tell she knew why. She just didn’t want to hear it. He took a breath. “Nanse… It’s too late for that.”

The kid had known it. It’s why he’d shied away. Din knew it. If he was honest, he’d known it since they’d visited Ama. But Nanse had kept on pushing. Was still pushing, despite the odds against them. 

It was easier to put it down to her own sense of survival. She was relying on him and his ship to stay ahead of her bounty hunters. But he’d offered her a free pass to leave, to find someone more reliable, and for some reason she’d stuck beside him. He wasn’t brave enough to ask why.

He laid a hand over hers, forcing her to lower the syringe, and this time she didn’t resist him. All the fight went out of her and she let her arms hang at her sides, staring blankly somewhere in the region of his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” he said. And somehow… it was. He wasn’t going to go out begging for death. He was going to make use of his last few hours for something worthwhile.

He took hold of her upper arms, forcing her to look back up at him. “But I need you to do something for me.”

He could tell she was trying to engage her own mask of emotionless neutrality—trying to protect herself from what was now irrefutably inevitable—but her usual control was wavering at the edges. And with an effort that seemed to cost her, she met the gaze of his visor and nodded.

* * *

She followed him up to the cockpit without argument and watched silently as he hunched over the control panel, pouring all his concentration into the task at hand. His hands were shaky and his movements were clumsy but he knew his ship almost as well as he knew his Beskar and even the poison couldn’t take that away from him. He programmed in a few final instructions and sat back in the pilot’s chair with a sigh.

“Okay, pay attention,” he said, as much to himself as to her, and ignored the arched eyebrow his order provoked as she sat beside him. “I’ve set up an automated launch system to get you off planet. In case… I can’t do it.”

He waited for her to protest. To dismiss his pessimism and revert back to the comfortable bickering equilibrium they’d established over the past few days. He almost wished she’d start yelling at him, hitting him, or shoving him again. But she didn’t. She stayed quiet and waited for him to continue.

He took a deep breath and turned to face her. “If I can’t… I need you to get the kid out of here. Take him to Cara Dune. She’s a friend. She’ll help you.”

He leaned across to the comm unit and brought up a holo image of his last correspondence from Cara to give her a visual reference. He’d considered adding Greef Karga as a secondary contact but quickly decided against it given Nanse’s reaction to his last message.

“All you have to do is get through atmo,” he continued. “The ship will go into autopilot once you hit the black. Then you can sit in orbit as long as you need to, or push a little further and drift until Cara picks you up.”

He was talking quickly now, breathless at the effort it took, but all too aware of how easy it would be to slip out of focus and lose his train of thought completely. He was also aware of how risky his orders were. If she found herself having to launch without him, chances are she’d have someone on her tail, but it was the best solution to a broken situation he could come up with and he needed to know she and the kid had an emergency escape route.

“You got all that?”

He waited for her to nod her reluctant acquiescence before turning back to the panel.

“Okay, this is the sequence…”

Her eyes tracked his hands as he walked her through each step. He’d made it as simple as he could manage, though he suspected she would have been more than capable of managing something more complex, and she dutifully ran through the whole sequence twice without fault when he asked her to show that she had it committed to memory.

“Good,” he said, satisfied with her competence and grateful for her unquestioning obedience. He even allowed himself a small, wistful smile at how easily she’d picked it all up. “See? I told you you’d be a natural.”

She didn’t smile but looked sideways at him with a guarded look. “So… what now?” she asked. “Back to Ama?” 

He shook his head. He’d already considered visiting the medic again and every outcome was the same. She’d been nervous enough of them before their run-in with Andales. There was no way she’d be prepared to trade with them now. And he didn’t have any more intimidation attempts left in him.

“They’ll have got to her,” he said, remembering the way she’d clutched at that horrible little spider droid like a pet.

 _Everything goes through the colony_ , she’d said. Which meant she was fully bought and sold into the system.

Nanse’s eyes scanned the sky beyond the cockpit, “Then… we leave. Find somewhere else. There’s still time–” 

“I’m not leaving Cappa,” he said firmly. “If you want to leave, take the ship. Take the kid. Get to Cara, just like I showed you. But I’m staying here.”

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, as if gathering the strength to reply. “What are you going to do?”

“I made a promise,” he said quietly.

But she was already shaking her head with a sickening look of pity, “Mando… You can’t help these people.”

“I gave my word.”

“So you’ll die for _honour_?” she snapped. “You’ll die and leave your kid with a… a stranger, because you made a promise to someone you just met?” 

He was glad she’d regained some of her fire but was surprised at her perspective, given her own experiences on R’Ossel Vorna. “I thought you’d want to help these people.”

“I do,” she sighed. “But you were right—what you said to Kandron. Sometimes you can’t win.”

A tiny dry huff of a laugh escaped his vocoder. “I don’t expect to win,” he said. “But maybe I can make a difference.”

She stared at him for what felt like an age but could only have been a few seconds. He knew she couldn’t see his face, or the way he was staring right back at her, trying to memorise every tiny detail, but something about the intensity of her gaze made his solar plexus ache as if she’d punched him.

“We had a deal, too,” she said at last, with the familiar scathing expression he had come to recognise as her baseline for social interaction. “Don’t think you can get out of it just because you’re _dying_.”

He thought he saw her fingers twitch, as if she was considering reaching across their knees to take his hand, but perhaps he was imagining it.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, in the same resolute tone as before, and this time there was no room for arguing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so we didn't *quite* make it to the finale yet but it turns out there was some additional angst and delirium and deep emotional pain I needed to inflict on everyone. Sorry 'bout that. Hope you enjoyed the interlude and I promise the end is nigh... 
> 
> Oh, and a question while you're here. Seeing as we're coming to the end of this particular plot arc (but certainly nowhere near finished with the larger story concerning Nanse), what are your feelings on this being: 
> 
> a) Part 1 in a series of fics following the adventures of Din, green bebe and Nanse
> 
> OR
> 
> b) One gigantic long fic that just continues on forever/until the whole thing is done? 
> 
> I'm aware BIG fics are quite daunting to some but others love to get their teeth into a brick of a fic, while series can sometimes be easier to digest but potentially confusing to navigate. Pros and cons? Preferences? I'd love to hear your thoughts. 
> 
> Thanks all! x


	17. The Last Stand - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guys. I know I promised you a finale and that's exactly what you're getting, HOWEVER, somehow it got way out of hand and topped out at like 12,000 words so I've split it into two parts for easy digestion (this is also why it's taken me a dang month to get this monster out of my head and onto the page) - but DON'T PANIC! I'm posting them both at once! 
> 
> Enjoy Part 1...

They took the Crest over the mountains to the ranch and he talked her through the rest of the flight basics on the way—partly to keep himself on task and partly to keep from having to think about what was coming next.

He’d gotten into the habit of talking mindlessly to the kid when it was just the two of them—the little critter sitting in the passenger seat chewing on his latest stolen toy, occasionally interjecting with a curious noise. He was pretty sure the child didn't understand a word he was saying but it was comforting, somehow, to have company after so many years alone.

It was an altogether different experience having someone who actually talked back and took an active interest in what he was saying, however. Nanse’s engineering brain immediately latched on to the intricacies of the flight system, asking thoughtful, pertinent questions and quickly learning her way around the dash. He half-wondered if her enthusiastic engagement was more to make sure he didn’t faze out again, but even if that was the case he didn’t mind. As he'd said before, it wasn’t as if there was much to crash into out here, and her attentiveness gave him confidence that she’d be able to handle the auto-launch if she needed to.

He’d told her it was a last resort but he didn’t see it happening any other way. 

His eyes landed on the little silver ball that sat atop the lever to his right. There was so much he still needed to tell her about the kid. So much that was out of his control. And so little time left.

He reached across to unscrew the ball and slipped it into his belt, aware of Nanse’s questioning look but unable to find the words to explain.

“We’re nearly there,” he said instead, sliding out of his seat and gesturing for her to take his place. “Take over for a minute, I’m gonna get the kid.”

“Woah, wait, I don’t–” she began, but he forced her hand by letting go of the yoke and stepping away from the control panel. She scrambled to replace him, glaring over her shoulder.

“You’ll be fine,” he said, stifling a smile, “Just keep it steady. And avoid the mountains.”

Her glare sharpened but she turned back to the viewport and tightened her grip on the controls.

He nodded in approval. She was going to be fine without him. 

He made his way down the ladder to the hold before she could protest any further, wincing with every step, measuring out each movement to keep the pressure in his head stable. Static framed his vision, threatening to black out if he pushed too hard, and he forced himself to take it slow, as much as it frustrated him. He just had to hang on a little longer. Get the job done. Fulfil his promises best he could. 

The kid was still awake, peeking over the edge of the hammock with his ears hanging low, and he watched the Mandalorian approach with doleful eyes. Din sat tentatively on the edge of the bunk, expecting the child to shy away again, but he didn’t. The creature simply looked up at him and let out a long, miserable meep.

“Hey buddy,” Din said quietly.

The boy’s ears lifted at the edges at the sound of the Mandalorian’s voice, then drooped even lower as the creature gave a heavy sigh. Din’s heart clenched. The sadness was worse than the fear, somehow.

“Don't worry. Nanse’s gonna look after you,” he said, his voice on the verge of cracking, “And Cara will know what to do. She’ll help you find your people.”

The kid’s only response was to hunker further down into the hammock. Din let out a sigh of his own. He didn’t have any other reassurances to give the kid and he didn’t want to lie to him by pretending it would all be okay. He owed him that much.

He pulled the metal ball out of his belt and held it out over the hammock as a peace offering.

“Here. You want this?”

He smiled as a tiny hand emerged slowly—but instead of grasping onto the ball, the little clawed fingers latched onto his finger and squeezed tight.

Din’s breath hitched. ”I’m sorry, _ad’ika_ ,” he whispered. “I know you’re scared. I am too.”

The child poked its head back out, blinking at the unfamiliar Mando’a word.

Din smiled. “ _Ad’ika_. That’s you. It means… little one. Child.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “It means ‘son’.”

The kid tilted his head in a perfect imitation of the Mandalorian and gave an approving chirp.

And for a second, that same glowing light he’d seen back in the speeder returned, surrounding the child with a wavering green aura. He blinked and it disappeared.

There was a sudden shift as the ship began banking to starboard and Nanse’s voice cut through the comm speaker of the bunk.

“Uhh, you wanna get back up here? We didn’t cover the landing part yet…”

The kid was still clinging on to his finger and didn’t let go, even as the Mandalorian wrapped his other hand around the creature's middle and gently lifted him out of the hammock.

“I guess we’re here,” he said, taking one last look around the ship—the closest thing to a home he’d had in years. The child in his arms the closest thing to family. The sigil on his pauldron a reminder of the only mission he’d ever had that mattered.

He wasn’t ready to leave it all behind. He wasn’t ready to give up.

But no one ever said The Way was meant to be fair.

* * *

The rain was lashing down as the Crest set down in one of the outer fields of the ranch and the ship’s lights cut stark white beams through the night.

Din was unsurprised to find three shadowed figures waiting for them—Kandron and his daughters, armed and ready for midnight intruders.

He was grimly pleased to see them so prepared, but as he looked at their fearful faces he felt a lurch of guilt that he only had bad news to give them.

He made his way stiffly down the cargo ramp, the child held tight in his arms. Nanse had offered to take him but the janky logic in Din’s head had convinced him that so long as he was holding the kid he wouldn’t let himself fall down, as much as his body was threatening to. 

The rancher met him at the bottom of the ramp, greeting the Mandalorian with an expression somewhere between incredulity and relief. “Didn’t expect to see you again,” he admitted with a shaky laugh.

Din shrugged his good shoulder. He might have kept his word but he'd failed in his mission to convince the Governor. There was no point sugar coating it. “Andales wouldn’t listen," he said shortly. "They’re coming for you. At dawn.”

Kandron took the news with calm resignation, his eyes roving across the surrounding farmland for a lingering moment before nodding at the Mandalorian. “Well. Thanks for trying, at least. You didn't have to.”

Din didn’t think he deserved much thanks but he nodded back out of politeness, then jerked his chin at the ship.

“If you’ve changed your mind… We don’t have a lot of fuel, but we could get you off Cappa at least.”

Kandron gave a pained look back at his girls. Carro was gawking up at the Crest with open-mouthed awe but Enra’s expression was resolute.

The older girl spoke for her father, meeting the eye line of the Mandalorian’s visor with a firm stare. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Din inclined his head to her. He respected the girl's directness. Her bravery. He brought a fist to his chest in acknowledgement of her authority.

“Then we’ll fight with you.”

* * *

Honourable choices aside, the fact remained that he was in bad shape. He stumbled twice on the way over to the farmhouse, and by the time they made it inside the wheezing of his breath was audible through his vocoder. He could feel everyone staring as he lowered himself into a seat with a creak of a groan.

The kid was still tucked into the crook of the Mandalorian’s arm, hunched into his little gown, ears drooping, claws grasping firmly onto Beskar as if he never wanted to let go again.

Carro loitered at his side, peering anxiously at the child. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “Is he sick?”

Din shifted a little so the girl could see the kid better. “No. He’s just… sad,” he explained, carefully extracting the child from his armour and setting him on his knee. As if to prove his point, the little green creature let out a shuddering huff of a sigh and turned his head away.

Carro’s eyes widened in sympathy and she reached out a finger to stroke the boy’s downturned ears.

Din tilted his helmet towards her. “Do you think you can find a way to get him to smile?” he said in a low stage whisper.

Carro nodded solemnly and bent down a little to try to get the kid’s attention. “Hey... It's too dark to hunt lizards but you wanna go play?”

The child tried his best to remain standoffish, shuffling back against the Mandalorian’s stomach with a sulky little squeak, but Din nudged gently him back towards the girl. “Go on, it’s okay.”

 _I’m not going anywhere just yet_ , he added silently.

The child looked up at him as if he’d said it aloud and, not for the first time, Din wondered if the kid’s powers extended to mind-reading. Either way, it worked, and the child shuffled to the edge of his _buir_ ’s lap and held out his arms for Carro to pick him up.

She gave him an affectionate squeeze and hustled off in the direction of the kitchen, murmuring something conspiratorial about midnight snacks in his little green ear, and Din gave a faint smile at the eager little meep of a response from the kid.

With the children gone, he let some of his forced togetherness drop, slumping forward to rest his forearms on his thighs, still trying to catch his breath from the short walk.

He watched a concerned look pass between Enra and Kandron but they thankfully thought better than to ask. Besides, there were more pressing matters at stake. They had just a few hours to turn this farm into a battleground.

He nodded at Kandron’s ancient blaster and Carro's rifle propped up by the door. “You got any other weapons?”

The farmer shook his head. “Rifle scares off most things that’d try for the herd. And the arms legislation made it illegal to own more than that anyhow…”

 _Ah yes, the ‘peaceful community’ of Cappa-Zero-Nine_ , Din thought. But he’d bet anything that the colony didn’t subscribe to its own laws on weaponry. They need to be prepared.

He made a brief mental catalogue of his own inventory. “I have more in the Crest,” he said. “And explosives,” he added, with a meaningful look to Nanse. She’d already proven her affinity for such things and he suspected she could come up with a few interesting ways of making use of his stash.

She nodded absently back, a frown pulling down at her features. The ranchers looked even less enthusiastic. In fact, they looked terrified, faced with the reality of a confrontation with the colony. Even Enra had lost some of her determination. He swallowed down a sigh. He needed them to bring spirit to this fight. And they needed him to lead them. He pulled himself to his feet; to stand tall; tried to channel the authority of every commanding officer who’d ever dragged his ass up off the ground and kept him fighting in the face of defeat. The unwavering faith of the Alor. The brash confidence of Paz. The fortitude of Cara.

Except he wasn’t any one of them. He was dog tired and hurting. He was a _beroya_ , not a leader. And _stars_ his head ached. He swayed a little, slamming his hand down on the backrest of the nearest seat and gripping it tightly to keep himself upright. His audience of three were openly staring now but at least they were giving him their full attention.

“We can defend this position,” he said firmly, faking confidence as he pointed to the farmland outside the window. “You have a strong placement here. The bottleneck will stop them crowding us, and the gorge should protect our flank…”

His soldier’s eye scanned over the terrain, mapping out the possibilities, the movements, the weak spots. What he’d said was true but none of it was infallible. Sure, the sheer cliffside surrounding the ranch offered a shield of sorts, but if Andales’ troops decided to make the effort to secure an elevated position they’d be trapped like fish in a barrel. And he had no idea what kind of weaponry they’d be facing. The narrow entrance to the farm would slow their attackers down but not permanently. There was never any certainty when it came to battle. 

His mind ticked with variables, slowly regaining a little focus and clarity as the muscle memory of combat took over and temporarily shoved the poison aside. He could do this. They could do this. If there was ever a place to make a stand, this was it. Even if it might turn out to be a last stand.

He turned back to Kandron. “Do you have a perimeter alarm? We’re gonna need to focus everything on the north side; build a barricade out of whatever you can spare.”

He picked up Carro’s rifle and gave it a quick inspection, his hands moving with steady purpose. He’d been trained for this. He’d lived through worse. He was a child of war. And he would die on his feet with a weapon in his hands.

“We’re going to need _everyone_ ,” he said in a low voice, “Everyone. Even Carro.” He fixed the farmer with the gaze of his visor. “No more warning shots.”

Kandron swallowed as if there was a rock in his throat, glancing back at the door to the kitchen. The sound of giggling children cut through the tense silence of the room.

“Wait,” Nanse cut in, taking a step towards the Mandalorian. For a moment, he almost reprimanded her for stepping out of formation before he remembered where he was—and the fact that he very much doubted he could ever give her orders.

“You told Andales you didn’t want bloodshed,” the engineer said in an undertone, looking up at him with a painful kind of honesty. “The only real fighter here is _you_. And… well. You’re not doing so great right now.”

He began to protest, to begin another speech, to find some other way to rally them to fight—they _had_ to fight—but she laid a heavy hand on the rifle in his arms and he saw the reality behind what he’d thought were rousing words.

She was right. These people were farmers, for all their bravery and their tenacity. Carro and Enra were just children. And they were all way out of their depth. 

He might be prepared to lose this battle but was he prepared to take them all down with him?

He let out a slow, gritty exhale. “What other choice do we have?”

Nanse looked up at him, eyes shimmering in the low light. “I… might have a plan,” she said slowly. “Something to bargain with. So no one has to get hurt.”

It was his turn to frown, tilting his helmet a few degrees to the side. 

“Do you trust me?” Her voice had dropped to a private whisper, just between the two of them.

She’d asked him the same question once before and he’d hesitated. He didn’t need to now. He’d seen first-hand what she could do in seemingly hopeless situations. She’d saved him from the mobsters with her flash grenades. She’d patched up his armour and kept him moving when he was ready to give up. She’d rerouted the tracker. She’d stopped him from losing his helmet—and his honour, even if she didn’t believe in honour. 

He trusted her with his life. And the child’s. 

He met her eyeline. “Yes.”

“Then let me try. At worst, it’ll buy us some time.”

He winced at her last word. _Time. ‘Cause I have so much of that left._

But he could see a familiar glint of focus appearing in the engineer’s eyes—the same look she got when she was calculating complicated, brilliant solutions in that complicated, brilliant brain of hers.

He nodded slowly. “Tell me what you need.”

A flash of satisfaction crossed her lips and was gone in an instant as she took control with a self-assurance that could have challenged Moff Gideon.

“Okay. Set up your barricade—but we’re using stun weapons _only_ ,” she told him emphatically, “We don’t need them accusing us of anything other than self-defence.”

She spun to the ranchers who visibly straightened up under her stare, and pointed to each of them in turn. “I need as many comm units as you can find. And do you have any more of those electric prods?”

The pair of them nodded in sync and stood poised to fetch and carry on her command, watching with anticipation as a last-minute thought seem to strike her and she crossed to the front door, reaching out to nudge the hanging legs of the droid spider wind chime, sending it tinkling.

“I’m gonna need to borrow this, too,” she added with a grim smile.

No one dared to ask for an explanation. Kandron and Enra set off on their tasks and the Mandalorian just stared as the engineer took down the droid and bundled it under one arm. She caught the gaze of his visor and gave a self-conscious little shrug.

“Look, just… trust me,” she said. “You do your thing. I’ll do mine.”

He smiled inside his helmet, knowing she couldn’t see it, and ticked his chin in the affirmative.

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

The work kept him distracted at least. He made four trips to and from the Crest with Kandron to gather the supplies they needed—some low gauge blasters with stun settings, a plasma shield, a handful of comm units, and as many storage boxes and crates as they could carry for the barricade.

The farmer didn’t say it out loud but Din could tell the man was keeping an eye on him: making sure to get to the heavier items before the Mandalorian could; finding excuses to let him rest in between loads; and once plain just abandoning him on the ramp of the Crest while he hauled supplies down to the barricade on the back of a truck.

Din wasn’t complaining. As much as he wanted to help, the cold realisation that he could no longer move the way he needed to was beginning to seep in, and he was only barely keeping the panic at bay. It helped that Nanse had given him orders. Something innate in his training clicked into place and kept him upright all the while he had a task to complete. To finish his mission. To obey. It was all that was keeping him going at this point. But even blind obedience could only last so long.

Everything was fuzzy and loud under the heavy rain. It was hard to see clearly beyond more than a few feet through the dark and the weather but from time to time he caught glimpses of Nanse and Enra working on the far end of the yard, the blue glow of the electrical prods illuminating their figures. He still had no idea of the specifics of Nanse’s plan but figured they were setting up some sort of inner defence perimeter to fall back on if—or when—the barricade fell.

He’d given up trying to mask how much effort each step cost him. Kandron waited patiently every time the Mandalorian dropped his end of a crate or had to stop to catch his breath, which happened more and more frequently as the night dragged on. His head was full of white noise, his hands were numb, and after a while even his body’s autopilot failed him. On their last run down to the barricade he slipped on the muddy ground and his left knee plain just gave out, sending him slamming down sideways faster than his reactions could catch him.

He found himself lying on his side, blinking at the tiny impacts of each raindrop on the puddle inches from his visor, wondering why the world had tipped ninety degrees. For a long, terrifying moment, his limbs refused to respond to his brain’s urgent commands to move and he wondered if this was it—if this was the time he couldn't get up again and the poison finally took him under. But then Kandron’s figure came into view, crouching beside him, and the farmer wordlessly pulled the Mandalorian’s arm over his shoulder and helped him straighten up, taking as much of the Beskar’s weight as he could as they stumbled back up to their feet.

Din didn’t even try to protest. He gripped onto the man’s shoulder and focused his swaying vision on the soft glow of the farmhouse as they made their slow, shuffling way back across the yard. By the time they reached the front deck, the spiralling of his balance was reaching a tipping point again and he gave a weary shake of his head when Kandron tried to coax him up the steps to the door. He needed to get off his feet and stop the creeping black from consuming his vision. He transferred his grip from the farmer to the railing and let himself slump down on the stairs, leaning heavily against the bannister post as his body struggled to decide which was more important—the relentless shuddering from the cold and rain, or the strained, wheezing breaths that had to be pulled up from the very bottom of his lungs.

Kandron sat beside him with a sigh and for a long moment they both said nothing—Din catching his breath, Kandron staring out at the distant swaying lights that signified the approaching figures of Nanse and Enra. When the scraping gravel of Din’s breathing finally subsided to a soft rasp, the farmer shot him a pensive sideways look.

“When you said you were sick, I didn’t realise…” he trailed off. “I’m sorry.”

Din sat up a little straighter with a stubborn grunt. “Be fine… in a minute.”

Kandron gave him a patient, pitying smile and looked past him to the window where the occasional glimpse of Carro and the child could be seen as they chased each other back and forth, the pair of them squealing and laughing as if there wasn’t a battleground being prepared right outside the door.

“I’ve heard stories about Mandalorians,” Kandron said, his eyes tracking over the hunched figure of the man beside him. “But nothing like you…”

Din tried to shrug but the pain in his shoulder tore an involuntary gasp out of him. He wrapped his good arm around himself and dragged his head around to meet the farmer’s eye line.

“If my tribe were here… they’d want to help too,” he said, his breath punching in and out of the modulator. He couldn't seem to stop shivering. “I’m sorry… it’s just me.”

Kandron’s look of sympathy was almost painful. “It’s not just you,” he said, as the sound of voices trickled through the patter of the rain and the silhouettes of Nanse and Enra resolved into detail as they drew closer.

Din had to swallow hard. There was too much left unsaid. Too much to be grateful for to ever repay. Too little time left.

He drew in a shaky breath and nodded towards where the Crest stood at the far side of the property. “If things start to go south, you get everyone to the ship. You get out of here. No last stands, okay?”

Kandron nodded his agreement with a sad sort of smile. “You ever think of taking your own advice, Mando?”

Din gave a husk of a laugh as he dragged himself back up to his feet. Kandron darted up to help him but he waved him away, trying his best to regain a pretence of stability as Nanse and Enra jogged the last few metres to the shelter of the deck, shaking the rain from their cloaks.

Nanse gave the Mandalorian a shrewd look up and down, taking in the tightness of his grip on the railing, the mud that covered his armour, and the way his posture slouched on his injured side. “Still with us?” she murmured as she passed, her hand resting briefly on his good shoulder.

“Just about,” he growled back.

At the top of the steps she turned to survey their work. A haphazard barricade formed a blockade at the entrance to the farmyard on the north side, comprising most of the contents of the Crest's cargo hold, a motley collection of farm vehicles and equipment. And beyond, over by the far edge of the yard, the faint glimpse of a blue glow signified whatever electrical perimeter she and Enra had managed to set up.

“Sun’ll be up soon,” Nanse said quietly, and all four of them looked towards the horizon in unison. It was hard to tell with the heavy cloud and rain, but the sky had begun to shift from black to darkest blue to a deep purple.

A shudder of adrenaline ran through him. It wouldn’t be long now, however this thing ended.

They all seemed to be thinking along similar lines, and a sombre silence fell. Kandron’s gaze shifted from the sky to his daughter, who stood tall beside Nanse, proud of her work and ready for the fight. The engineer looked less certain but she was hiding it well behind her usual mask of neutrality. Din recognised the look on her face—she’d seen battle before; had seen what happens once the courage and righteousness gives way to terror and chaos; but she had to keep a level head. To lead. To do what needed to be done.

He was glad she’d taken charge. He just hoped he could stay upright long enough to be of use.

Behind him, he heard the screen door of the farmhouse squeal open and clatter closed, and a few moments later the familiar pressure of two tiny hands clamped around his boot. He looked down to see the wide black eyes of the child staring up at him and he hissed through the searing ache in his bones to reach down and lift the babe up.

“Hey, womp rat,” he whispered, pulling the kid close. The creature tapped a claw against his helmet and let out a coo of a greeting.

“He’s happy now,” Carro said, with all the simple confidence of youth. “I think. He laughed _a lot_ when I showed him how to blow bubbles in milk.”

Din smiled as the child blew an enthusiastic raspberry to demonstrate his newfound skill.

“Good job,” he told the kid, then nodded to Carro. “Thank you.”

She grinned back, giving her own father a sideways hug, subconsciously mirroring the Mandalorian and his child.

“So… What now?” Carro asked, looking to each of the adults in turn. “You want me on the roof again?”

Nanse caught Kandron’s look of warning and shook her head, bending down to the girl’s height and unclipping a small rectangular device from her belt.

“No, not this time. I have a special job for you. The most important job of all.”

She held the device out to the girl, who took it reverently, if a little confused. Din recognised some of the components as parts and scrap from his own ship, and right in the centre was the familiar red eye of the spider droid she’d borrowed from the wind chime.

“What is it?” Carro asked.

“It’s… a kind of transmitter. I need it to send a message. But I need your help to boost the signal. You’re good at climbing, right?”

The girl nodded enthusiastically, looking to her father for validation. “Papa hates heights, he gets too dizzy, but I’ve climbed up the _windmill_ before.”

Kandron gave an anxious sigh but Nanse smiled in approval. “Good. Because I need you to take this to the top of the cliff—you see where that electrical tower is, on the ridge?” She pointed up to the left side of the valley where a yellow light blinked steadily in the night sky. “As fast as you can. You think you can do that?”

Another series of nods from Carro. A deeper frown from her father.

“Then,” Nanse said, gently guiding the girl’s hands over the controls of the device, “You attach this to the control box at the base of the tower and you press this button _._ ”

She demonstrated what she meant and the red eye began to flash.

“Easy, right?”

Carro took on a resolute expression that was distinctly reminiscent of her big sister. And probably their mother too, judging by the way Kandron looked simultaneously heartsick and proud as he watched the exchange.

Satisfied, Nanse straightened up and turned to the farmer before he could interject with the concerns that were clearly playing on his mind. “She’s the fastest one here,” she said plainly, then dropped her voice to an undertone, “And wouldn’t you rather she was out of harm’s way?”

Kandron took a breath, as if to answer, then let it out with a puff of resignation.

“All right. What about the rest of us?”

Nanse gave a nod to Enra, who seemed to already know the plan, and selected a couple of blasters from the weapons crate Din had brought over from the Crest. Enra took hers without hesitation, her jaw set in determination as she kept one eye on the gradually lightening horizon.

Nanse held the other weapon out to Kandron. “Can you shoot?”

The farmer stared at the gun with trepidation and Din remembered how much the man’s hands had shaken the last time he’d wielded one. The Mandalorian stepped forward to intervene, taking the blaster from Nanse and holding out the child to Kandron instead.

“Stay inside. Protect the kid," he told the farmer. "We don’t all need to be fighters.”

Kandron’s look of relief was palpable. He took the child and settled him in the curve of his arm with a naturalness that gave Din a pang of envy. The kid looked from one man to the other with an assortment of curious coos, then reached out for his _buir_ , his ears taking on a questioning curl.

Din cupped the side of the child’s face with his palm. “It's okay. He’ll look after you. Stay out of sight. I’ll be back, I promise.”

His voice caught on the last part. It was an outright lie this time. Perhaps the kid knew it, too, but instead of protesting he gave a sad little sigh and burrowed into Kandron’s shoulder.

“I’ll keep him safe,” the farmer said, and Din had to swallow several times before he could speak again.

Turning back to the crate of weapons he pulled out a long-nosed shotgun and set it to stun. “Just in case,” he said, pressing it into Kandron’s spare hand. “No need for accuracy—it’s got a wide spread—just aim in the general direction.”

Kandron nodded reluctantly and Nanse gave him a sympathetic nod. “We only have to keep them busy for long enough that Carro can get the transmitter up to the tower. Enra and I will cover the yard.”

“Where do you want me?” Din said, stifling a grunt as he reached up to pull his plasma rifle off his shoulder, but Nanse stopped him with a hand on his arm and handed him Carro’s rifle instead. 

“I need _you_ ,” she said, “on the roof.”

He paused, staring at the rifle. She was trying to get him out of the way, just as she'd done with Carro. They were all looking at him as if they expected him to fall down at any moment. And perhaps he was. He was certainly in no condition to fight, for all his good intentions. The pain ran deep now, with every breath, and his fever had maxed out his body’s ability to regulate its own temperature, shivering and sweating at the same time.

Still. Maybe he could still be useful. He understood the rationale. He could still provide some cover from the rooftop—a menacing threat their enemies couldn’t quite see. Far more threatening than the sight of a half-dead Mandalorian who could barely stand on his own two feet.

He caught the faintest hint of an apologetic wince on Nanse’s face before she nudged a response out of him with a raised eyebrow.

He dipped his helmet in respect for his commander. “Yes, ma’am.”

The grateful smile she gave him in response made the back of his neck tingle and for a moment the whole room seemed to glow, pulsing with the strange, ethereal, psychotropic light of the poison’s effects. And Nanse was right at the centre of it.

He blinked, and for all he knew it might have lasted an hour—time, space, thought, feeling, everything was suspended, hanging in the luminous air as though everything was underwater—until it all came crashing down.

“They’re here.”

Enra was leaning over the deck railing, pointing northward, where a distant line of white lights crested the horizon, getting closer by the second.

Din felt his body return to reality with a heaviness that pulled a breathy groan out of his chest. He leaned on Carro’s rifle like a walking stick, grounding himself by squeezing the barrel and sending a flare of pain through his bad arm. He shook the remainder of the poison’s fog from his head. He needed to stay alert. No more getting lost in the light.

A flurry of activity surrounded him. Nanse started passing out comm links, Enra double checked her blaster, and Kandron hurriedly tucked Carro’s cloak around her, holding her in place with his hands on her shoulders for a moment before she could dart off on her mission.

“You be _careful_ up there,” he told her firmly. “It’s going to be slippy. Don’t be reckless.”

The little girl rolled her eyes. “Papa, I’ve done it million times. And the lady said to hurry,” she added.

Kandron pulled in a long, shaky breath. “I know, I know, but… Listen. Nothing is worth losing you.” He looked over his shoulder at Enra. “Either of you.”

Enra held her father’s gaze for a moment before crossing the deck in three steps and gathering her family in a tight hug. The child, still in Kandron’s arms, was caught right in the middle and gave a squeal of surprise, then a coo of pleasure, producing a wave of laughter that ran through the ranchers and hit Din between the ribs like the twist of a knife.

Carro broke away and readjusted her cloak, steeling herself for the long journey ahead. As she passed the Mandalorian she looked up at him with a thoughtful frown.

“You’re not scared of heights are you?” she asked.

His helmet angled down to meet her eyeline. “No.”

“You _look_ scared.”

A huff of a laugh escaped his vocoder. He wasn’t sure how she’d reached that assumption without being able to see his face but he figured his body language wasn’t exactly hiding how much he was struggling.

“I’m… tired,” he said.

She didn’t look convinced but she patted him on the arm in a condescending kind of way. “Well. Don’t worry. You’ll be okay. Your kid told me you never give up.”

It was his turn to frown. “What–?” he began, but she was gone, ducking out from beneath the awning at a run, heading for the cliffside.

There was no time to make sense of it. Enra was next, exchanging a nod of fortitude with Nanse as she made a beeline for one of the stables on the far side of the farmyard. Kandron watched until both his girls were out of sight before turning back to the house with a half-hearted salute, the child peeking over his shoulder as the door shut behind them.

And then it was just the two of them, looking out at the dark expanse of scrubland. The line of lights had broken up into a jagged zigzag now. He couldn’t count the vehicles from here—it was difficult to even tell how far away they were—but he could feel the dread rising in his throat like bile. 

He flinched as Nanse took his hand in both of hers, watching curiously as she turned his forearm upwards and tinkered with something on his remaining bracer. He didn’t stop her. He didn’t have the energy to question anything at this point and the gentle pressure of her fingers on his arm was a cool, reassuring anchor to reality. He missed it when she let go.

“You’d better get up there,” she said, glancing upwards at the roof. “Kandron said there’s a ladder round back.”

He nodded absently, his attention caught by a tiny light on the foothills at the base of the cliff—Carro, all alone in the dark with nothing but a torch. The kid was braver than any of them.

“What’s the transmitter for?” he asked.

Nanse followed his gaze. “Did you see the holo map? In Andales’ office?”

He shook his head. That whole interaction had been a haze of rage and feverish panic.

“Well,” she said slowly, “I did. And it looked more like R’Ossel Vorna than I thought was possible. It might be a racket but at least I know how it works.”

He didn’t understand, but any questions he might have had melted away when she took his hand again.

“Trust me,” she said, looking up at him with a strained smile, squeezing his fingers between hers.

He squeezed back, ignoring the flare of burning pain that shot up his arm. And when she let go, he found himself holding a hypo syringe. He stared blankly at it, trying to decipher her sleight of hand.

“It’s the one from Ama,” she explained. “I don’t know what it does, but if you need it, promise me you’ll take it.”

He’d made too many promises he couldn’t keep, lately. But he also couldn’t ignore the urgency in her voice. “All right,” he said in a rumbling whisper.

She was the first to look away. “We’d better get in position.”

He nodded, doing his best not to stumble as he headed along the deck towards the side of the farmhouse.

“Oh, and Mando?” she called after him.

He paused, looking over his shoulder. 

Her eyes tipped up to the roof and back down again. “Don’t fall, okay?”

He snorted. “I’ll try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A whoooole lotta battle prep. Some angst. A little whump. And just what is Nanse up to? Action scenes comin' up...


	18. The Last Stand - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty, here it is. Part 2 of the longest finale in existence... Let the battle commence.

Her warning was more valid than perhaps she realised. The ladder stretched up three storeys and by the time he reached the second floor his head was spinning and his arms were shaking with the effort of holding himself up.

_Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Just. Don’t. Fall._

He hooked his good arm around the rung above and hung for a moment, catching his breath, letting his helmet fall forward to rest against the metal bars.

For a second he wished he’d brought the Phoenix, then quickly revoked that wish, imagining how much more nauseous he’d feel rocketing up a hundred feet in the space of a few seconds.

No. He just had to keep climbing. Follow orders. Get to the roof. 

The static of his comm unit made his head jerk up.

“You there yet?” came Nanse’s voice.

He took a deep breath and hauled his way up a few more rungs before twisting his wrist to activate his comm unit.

“Gimme… a damn… minute…” 

Almost at the top. His injured shoulder _burned_ every time he had to pull his weight up and his right hand had lost all its grip strength, numb and cold.

“Keep it up, soldier,” Nanse said, and he could swear she was smirking. 

He swore under his breath as he made the last few feet to the roof, forcing his aching limbs to obey until he was able to crawl up the tiled incline on his belly. Reaching the chimney, he gave a grunt of recognition as he saw the missing ragged chunk of stonework from his warning shot. He leaned against it for a moment, waiting for the spiralling of his balance to settle and the screaming white noise in his head to recede, before pulling the rifle from his back and resting it in his lap.

“All right. I’m here,” he rasped through comms. “Awaiting orders.”

It was a good position. A clear view in both directions and down into the yard below. He could see the approaching colony vehicles more clearly now—they were making steady progress, but still a way out.

“You see ‘em?” Nanse asked.

“I see ‘em.”

“We’re in position, too,” she said. “Weapons on stun, remember. We’re just the distraction. Carro’s doing the real work.”

There was another scratch of static and Kandron’s voice came through, anxious and strained. “Can you see her from up there?”

He scanned the cliffside, squinting through the rain. The sky was already a lot lighter than an hour ago, the planet’s pale sun making its way towards the horizon and casting a misty glow over the mountains. He saw a flickering light, about a quarter of the way up the cliff. A darting movement amongst the shadowed rocks.

“I think so.”

The rancher gave a little exhale of relief. “Good. You keep an eye on her for me. I’ve got your boy here, safe and sound.”

A faint smile lifted his lips as he heard the echoey coos of the child in the background. “I will. And thank you.”

He shuffled himself into more of an upright position to get a better view of the battlefield. He wished he had a functioning HUD. It was going to be difficult to pick out individual figures in the dim light without it, even without the added complication of his blurring vision and the tremor in his hands. He checked over the rifle, trying to work a little life into his senseless fingers by squeezing them into fists.

When he glanced up again, the approaching lights seemed to have doubled—tripled—the headlights fracturing within his vision like a prism, overlaying one another and confusing his tired eyes. There were auras around almost everything now, and he realised with a cold jolt that it was a familiar sensation. Back on Nevarro, bleeding out of the back of his cracked skull, his brain swelling and concussion putting pressure on his optical nerve, everything had taken on the same haze. The fire, all around. His vision, swimming in the pain and the fear. 

He’d been near death then.

But this couldn't be it. He needed more time.

His comm startled him with a sudden beep, signifying a change in frequency, and Nanse’s voice sounded in his ear—so close it almost felt as if she was right beside him, whispering over his shoulder.

“Hey,” she said, and some of the surety from her voice had disappeared. “This is a private channel. You there?”

He hummed in response, still trying to push himself up into something resembling a combat position.

He heard Nanse take a deep breath. “Look. These people are scared. Even Enra. I’ve set up as much as I can but I have no idea if they’ll shoot straight or freeze. I’m gonna need you to do most of the heavy lifting.”

A strangled laugh died in his throat. The rifle felt like lead in his grip, and the barrel swayed precariously when he lifted it to his shoulder. Heavy lifting was not his strong point right now.

But if she heard his scathing response she ignored it. “Just… scare ‘em up a bit," she said, "Try to keep them away from the house. Steer them towards the pond if you can.”

He peered through the rifle’s sight, strafing the reticule across the yard to settle on the dark oval that he vaguely remembered to be a small body of water. Right behind the pond was a storage barn, and just as he was about to lower the scope he thought he saw a flash of blue.

He imagined Nanse crouching there. The shimmer of her hair. The little dented line that formed between her eyebrows when she frowned. The way her eyes seemed to darken when she got serious. And the tiny uplift of the edges of her lips when she tried to suppress a smile…

“Mando? You hear me?”

He cleared his throat, letting the rifle drop back to his lap, breathless from the concentration of focusing through the scope. “I hear you.”

There was a pause and he could almost visualise the concern on her face when she spoke next. “Just hold on a little longer, okay?”

He gave another wheeze of a laugh, but it turned to a grimace. “I’m trying…” he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the bombardment of lights in his vision. But doing so only intensified the pain shooting through his veins. He gasped through a wave of it, listening to Nanse’s quiet breathing on the other end of the line.

“Getting harder to stay with it,” he explained in a croak. “Don’t know if I can…”

“You _have_ to,” she said, forcing the firmness back into her voice.

“I know… I just…” He let his helmet rest back against the brickwork and rolled his head to the left, looking out across the yard to where he guessed Nanse was. “Can you… talk to me? Like before? Help me stay awake. Distract. From the pain.”

She didn’t answer for a long moment, then: “Does the kid really eat lizards?”

He let himself laugh, even though it hurt his strained lungs. “Uh huh. And frogs. Bugs. Whatever he can catch, really.”

“Huh.”

“He’s pretty self-sufficient.”

He could hear the smile in her voice this time. “When he’s not trying to throw himself off cliffs you mean?”

He rolled his eyes at the memory of that particular game—the endless back and forth while he was trying to scan the ship. But despite how irritated he’d been at the time, he could only think of the child with fondness now. “Yeah, well. He’s curious. You just gotta… keep an eye on him.”

Shifting position made him wince, but he needed to keep moving, keep the poisoned blood flowing in his muscles, keep himself from slipping, keep himself this side of unconsciousness.

He thought about all the stupid tiny details he needed to tell Nanse about the kid. The little yawning noise he makes just as he wakes up. The way the expression of his ears tells you more than words ever could. How he gets fussy when he’s overtired and can’t sleep unless he’s sitting on you. That he’s a stubborn little womp rat, and knows full well that his most high-pitched squeak sets off feedback in Din’s helmet speaker. How he’s scared of the compressor unit in the kitchen—Din still hasn’t figured that one out but he only uses it when the kid's asleep now. His obsession with that damn silver ball. The fact that he’s fifty years old but somehow still a toddler. The way he was able to lift a whole adult mudhorn with the power of his mind. How he stopped a flame trooper...

How was he supposed to begin to explain all that?

“…Mando?”

His helmet buzzed with the edge in her voice and he jolted his head up. His chin had dropped to his chest—he’d fazed out again.

“Yeah. M’here.”

She let out a deep breath. “Lost you for a minute there.”

He blinked through the rain. The sky was brighter. The lights closer. He was running out of time. He couldn't put it off any longer. 

“I know you’re not a babysitter,” he blurted. “But… Promise me you’ll take care of him.”

“Mando–”

“Nanse," he sighed, "I’m seeing things. I can’t… breathe right. Can’t… feel my fingers.” He watched his hand make a fist but all his brain would register was the ice-like grip of the poison running through his arm. “I need to know you’ll keep him safe, that’s all.”

For a moment he thought they’d been cut off and the hiss of the rain filled his head before a soft ‘okay’ came through the comms.

“Thank you,” he whispered back.

Another silence. Then she cleared her throat, regaining her scathing tone. “You’re an idiot for coming to R’Ossel Vorna, you know.”

He was never sure if she meant to make him laugh or if she really meant what she said. Perhaps both. He liked it, nonetheless. “That’s probably true.”

“I’m glad you did, though,” she said shortly, as though she needed to get the words out before she regretted them.

He knew the look that would be on her face as she spoke. The same awkwardness she showed whenever he tried to show her she could trust him. Whenever he tried to help.

A thought struck him—delirious and hilarious and not funny at all: “Were you really going to shoot me? Back in the alley?” The memory of her blaster pressing against his stomach made his pulse jump. Not many people were able to say they got that close to killing a Mandalorian at such close range.

“I... don’t know,” she said, after a moment of thought.

He nodded to himself. He didn’t take it as an insult. And he appreciated the honesty.

“Did you ever consider turning me in?” she countered.

He didn’t know how to reply to that. It had crossed his mind, but only in the way that he’d been trained to consider every option before he made his decision. It had never been his objective. Trade the puck for fixing his armour, perhaps, but that wasn’t the same. Even if she’d turned out to be a pain in the ass it was unlikely he would have gone back on their agreement if she’d followed through on her end. He might be a bounty hunter but his Mandalorian honour took precedent.

But he paused too long in answering as the thoughts ticked through his head and she gave a flat laugh.

He shook his head, “No, I…”

“Have you ever considered whether all your bounties really deserved it?” she asked quietly. Her tone was conversational rather than accusatory but the question still hit him like a blow.

He blinked into the inside of his helmet. He felt the same twist in his stomach, the same flush of panic as if she were scrutinising him face to face. He’d never had the liberty of asking questions about his bounties. The only think he ever quibbled was the price. He’d taken pucks from Greef without giving them a second glance. And yeah, if they were stupid enough to get a bounty on their head, they probably deserved it. There was no shortage of assholes in the galaxy. Whatever moral uncertainty he'd felt, he'd simply told himself he was providing for the covert.

And then there was the kid.

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. Reckoned it was as good a time as any for a confession, if it was the last chance he might get at one.

“The child,” he said quietly. “He was… a bounty at first.”

She made no reaction to the information and he forced himself to continue.

“I didn’t know he was a kid until I found him. But… I took him in anyway. Got paid in Beskar.”

He swallowed painfully. He wished he could see her face; see if she was as disgusted as he was with his former choices. But there was nothing down the line but the soft patter of the rain.

He hauled in a splintered breath. “I was wrong. I got him back. Fought for him. But… I can’t undo it. I’m sure there were others who didn’t deserve it either.”

She still didn’t answer. He wondered if she was even there. If he’d been hallucinating all this time—talking to himself, alone in the dark. His eyes were shut but he didn’t remember closing them. He felt like he was turning to stone.

“Nanse…” he said in a voice that was barely there, “I wasn’t ever going to turn you in.”

Behind his eyelids he saw a flash of a memory—back in the alleyway, her staring up at him in fear, in betrayal—and his promise to her. “You’re safe… with me.”

He wasn’t sure if he even said it out loud, and whatever her reaction, he never got to hear it.

The channel switched with a scratch and Enra’s voice came through the comm unit, high and shaky.

“They’re almost here. What do we do? What do we _do_?”

Din’s eyes flew open and he reeled as his vision struggled to adjust to the sudden dazzle of lights. The colony vehicles were a few hundred metres away now and he had no idea how long he’d spent drifting in and out of his conversation with Nanse. He vaguely registered her voice on the main channel, snapping out orders to Enra and asking him twice, three times, if he was in position. By the time the words got through to him he’d managed to lever himself up on one knee, his left side braced against the chimney for stability, Carro’s rifle nocked tight to his shoulder.

“Just say the word,” he rasped, watching through the sight as two armoured trucks bore down on the little ranch, flanking two even larger vehicles that ran on tracks like tanks, with pointed noses that looked like battering rams—demolition equipment, he guessed. They weren’t even going to try to talk. They were here to destroy the ranch, right there and then.

He felt his anger flare—outrage at the irony of the military grade outfit rolling up on Kandron’s doorstep after all Andales’ talk of a ‘peaceful community’. The fury helped to ground him, pinpointing his focus and sweeping away some of the fog from his tired brain. He could disconnect from the pain and the delirium for a little while—all he needed to be for the next few minutes was a trigger finger.

“Stay in place,” Nanse said through the comms, low and steady. “And stay out of sight, all of you.”

Din held onto her voice like an anchor. He could be a soldier. He could be a cog in the machine. So long as someone was ordering him to keep going he could at least try.

The vehicles rumbled to a stop just outside the barricade and from atop the demolition tanks, floodlights cut white beams through the dawn, casting sharp shadows across the farmyard.

Din winced at the sudden deluge of light but managed to keep his grip on the rifle, gritting his teeth and digging his good shoulder into the chimney stack to stay grounded.

For a moment, nothing happened. The armoured vehicles remained still and no one emerged. Then a familiar voice filled the air, amplified through a speaker—the drawling, nasal tones of Jorran, sounding just as self-important as ever.

“Attention, residents,” the official announced, and his voice buzzed a little at the edges at it reached the limits of the speaker’s volume. “This property and all associated lands are now officially under colony ownership according to policy number C-09-85-X. Demolition will proceed immediately and residents are strongly advised to vacate the premises as the colony will not be held responsible for any damages to possessions, injury, or loss of life that may occur. Please be advised that any contravention of these orders is punishable by colony law.”

Din heard both Kandron and Enra swear quietly through the comms but nobody broke Nanse’s orders. The farmyard remained empty and still.

When there was no response, the armour-plated machines began their slow approach to the barricade. Din’s trigger finger twitched but there was no one to target. The demolition crew were locked tight within their vehicles, safe from any possible assault they could throw at them with their limited weaponry. He hadn’t expected this. He’d imagined an armed guard, come to arrest Kandron and his family, perhaps. More uppity administrators like Jorran, come to rattle off red tape until they submitted to the Governor’s deal. But they weren’t here to talk, or bargain, or even necessarily take the ranchers alive. They were here to destroy, plain and simple.

With a horrible crunching noise of crushed metal, the reinforced battering rams made contact with the barricade—rolled right over it, in fact—making easy work of shunting the detritus aside. And Din’s last lingering hope of making a difference to Kandron and his girls sank to the pit of his stomach.

“How are we meant to stop these things with stun bolts?” he muttered over the comms.

“Just. Wait,” was Nanse’s slow response, but he didn’t have to wait long.

True to his expectations, it turned out she had indeed made good use of his explosives collection. Two—three—four concussion grenades went off as the demolition tanks reached the half way point of the barricade. She must have buried them underneath, hooked up to a sensor, or rigged some kind of remote detonator, and a powerful concussive wave spread out in all directions.

He found himself grinning at her ingenuity, watching in satisfaction as one of the tanks was blasted sideways, tipped up at an awkward angle that stopped any further movement, entangled as it was with the splintered, broken pieces of what remained of the barricade.

The other tank seemed unaffected and continued its slow but devastating path through the barricade, but the two armoured trucks moved in to cover the upturned vehicle, and the sound of panicked shouts could be heard as four crewmen scurried out to try to get it back on course.

The opportunity they’d been waiting for. All according to Nanse’s plan.

“Open fire!” she barked through the comms, and blue stun bolts blazed through the air as Enra and the engineer began their flanking attacks down in the yard.

It took Din a moment to catch up, distracted by the sudden flurry of action. Then he remembered the rifle in his own hands and let a bolt fly, directly at a crewman who was about to return fire at the farmer’s daughter as she ducked behind the stable door. His stun blast went a little wide, thanks to the tremor of his hands, but it was distraction enough to send the colonists ducking for cover, abandoning their attempts at freeing the tank and looking wildly up and around to see where the new attack had come from.

One of them must have spotted a glint of Beskar on the roof because when they finally gathered the wherewithal to start shooting back, they focused all their firepower on him. Except, instead of blue bolts, the returning fire came in streaks of red laser fire. They really weren’t bothered about collateral damage... Still, better that they aim at him than Nanse and Enra. 

He ducked as a shot took out a chunk of the chimney above his head and readjusted his grip on the rifle, trying to steady his hands through sheer willpower alone. He needed to keep their attention on him, keep them away from the others, and keep them from getting that demolition tank back on track.

He snapped off another two rounds, dislodging loose detritus from the barricade and sending it clattering down on top of two crewmen attempting to dig the tank out. Trying to make much of an impact with the stun beams was tricky from such a distance, and for a second he considered switching over to regular bolts before remembering Nanse’s orders. She had a reason for her non-lethal approach and he’d promised to follow it.

Still, his frustration deepened as his poison-lagged aim continued to miss the mark. The barrage of the rain weighed down on him, and more than once he felt himself slipping on the wet tiles, throwing out a panicked arm to hold onto the chimney. Nanse's warning still held. Even his Beskar couldn’t protect him from a three-storey fall. He tried not to look directly down, shaking the dizziness out of his head, and resumed his position on the scope.

Down in the yard, Enra managed to strike a direct hit on one of the crewmen and let out a surprised whoop of triumph as the man slumped senseless to the ground. But the noise gave away her position and the next salvo of shots were sent her way. A surge of panic lanced through him. He'd promise Kandron he'd keep the girls safe. 

“Enra, move! I’ll cover you,” he growled through the comms, raising himself a little higher to get a better angle on his targets. The sudden shift exposed him above the edge of the roof but he didn’t care—the thought of one of those red bolts hitting the farmer’s daughter made his stomach lurch worse than the poison. He fired indiscriminately, aiming for distraction rather than accuracy, peppering the yard with blue light.

It worked. Sure enough, the demolition crew turned their fire on the silver figure on the rooftop once more and he squared his shoulders against the barrage of shots that ricocheted off his armour. He was used to the bruising impacts but they seemed to hit a little deeper than usual, and he grunted through the pulsing pain, returning fire the moment his scope stabilised.

Another crewman collapsed as a stun bolt rippled through him and Din ducked back down to catch his breath, scanning the yard to check that Enra had gotten back to cover. He couldn’t see her by the stable but he _did_ spot a flash of blue darting behind the barricade. Nanse, throwing herself into the fray, as usual. The knot in his stomach twisted tighter.

He redoubled his concentration, cursing in Mando’a at the slow fade in and out of his vision; how long it took him to track each target; how every shot seemed to be just off the mark; how heavy the rifle felt on his shoulder; how close that second demolition tank was to pushing right through the other side of the barricade...

One of the armoured trucks was steadily nudging the other tank out of its jammed position and the crewmen guarding it had managed to rally themselves into some sort of order and were bombarding the rooftop with a steady stream of firepower that sent him sprawling flat on his face, his armour clattering against the tiles. He raised his head an inch and instantly took a bolt to the helmet, ringing a bell in his head that resounded with vertigo.

And the poison whispered to him, the same thing it had been whispering for hours now: _Wouldn’t it be easier just to give up? Just lay down and sleep?_

He let out a faint moan of effort as he struggled to push himself up once more. He was so very tired. And it would be so very easy to give up. But Nanse was down there. His child was down there. The ranchers. His promise.

_Look at you. You can’t even get up._

He shook his head at the voice, forced his elbows to lock, forced his knees up beneath him, used the rifle as a lever to get to a semi-vertical position, hunched and swaying. He didn’t bother to look through the rifle scope—he nocked the weapon loosely to his shoulder and fired freeform, aiming for chaos rather than precision. He just had to keep them busy while Nanse did… whatever the hell she was up to. He staggered as a searing red bolt hissed past his injured shoulder, singing his cowl—far too close for his liking—but he was so numb he doubted he’d feel much even if one of them scored a direct hit. He sucked in a breath and centred his balance once more.

_Just don't fall. Just don't fall._

He was lining up his next shot when the other tank broke through the barricade, its engine letting out a roar of triumph as it turned towards the stables where Enra had been hiding, revving up for a charge.

He felt his breath stutter in his chest. There was nothing he could do. Nothing anyone could do. For a moment even the crewmen paused to watch as the demolition machine ploughed through the yard, crushing a feeding trough and smashing through fences, on a straight line to destruction.

“Enra, run…” he breathed, waiting desperately to see the farmer's daughter appear from the stable. The wooden structure would collapse into splinters the moment the tank hit it. She had to get out of there. She had to get out…

And then two things happened at once.

First, the tank never made it to the stable. Din had forgotten all about the pond lying between the barricade and the outbuilding—it was almost impossible to see from the barricade, too, and must have been all but invisible to the tank in the darkness. But it was there, surrounded by electrical prods, all wired up to one another, running through the water, and lying in wait for its first victim.

The moment the vehicle tipped over the edge of the waterhole it erupted into a fiery display of blue lightning, sparks misfiring from every mechanism. White smoke billowed from the engine and the tracks turned jerkily as the battering ram nose slowly sank into the mud. Men began clambering out, shouting and hollering, but one by one they either slipped into the water and suffered their own personal electric shock, or were taken down by Enra and Din’s flanking stun bolts.

It was over in seconds, and when the tank lay steaming, surrounded by inert, unconscious crewmen, he heard Enra laughing over the comms.

The second thing that happened, almost simultaneously, was that one of the armoured trucks spontaneously combusted. Din staggered sideways against the chimney as a fireball plumed into the air and was not at all surprised to see Nanse slipping back through the barricade from whence she’d came. In line with her no-casualty rule, the destroyed truck had been empty—its crew spread out in front of the other tank, busy firing at the Mandalorian—and just as well, because when the smoke cleared the vehicle was nothing more than a shell of twisted metal, covered in flames. The other truck started shunting more urgently at the remaining tank to get them both out of the way of the encroaching fire and the colonists scattered into the yard, picked off one by one by blue stun waves that came from all directions.

For the first time, Din dared to hope that they might just pull this thing off. How quickly a battle could turn. 

But it didn’t last long.

After one final desperate shunt from the armoured truck, the remaining tank finally thudded back onto its tracks, barrelling its way through the rest of the barricade and into the yard. Learning from the other tank’s mistake, it ignored the lure of Nanse and Enra’s electrical trap and made a wide turn in the opposite direction, lining itself up to head straight for the farmhouse instead.

 _How quickly a battle could turn..._

Din just stood and stared, the rifle dangling from the crook of his elbow, the tank’s floodlights half-blinding him.

The engine growled twice and then the tank was moving at full speed towards the house, faster than seemed possible for such a heavy vehicle. Whatever else Nanse had up her sleeve, there was no stopping this. 

He thought he heard her yell out for him but couldn’t tell if the voice had come through the comms or the air. No matter which, any other sound was drowned out by the almighty rumbling crash as the tank forged into the deck and straight through the front wall of the farmhouse.

There was nothing to hold onto. No possible way to keep his balance against the earthquake. The roof shuddered beneath his feet and a surge of tiles avalanched downwards, sending him slamming down onto his side, scrabbling for a handhold. The rifle was torn out of his hands, skittering over the edge of the roof into the darkness, and he wasn’t far behind, sliding wildly towards the three storey drop almost faster than his senses could react. His Beskar screeched against the tiles as he desperately tried to slow his descent, attempting to activate the whipcord on his missing bracer before realising it wasn’t there. A wordless shout escaped his throat as he slid out into mid air—and then he was swinging in a wide arc and slamming into the wall, his left hand grasping hold of the ladder at the very last second. His injured shoulder screamed at him as he locked his elbow over a rung and hung there for a moment, catching what remained of his winded breath.

He could feel the vibration of the tank’s engine through the metal of the ladder, through the side of the building—the grinding of the foundations as the vehicle reversed out of the broken wall, preparing for another assault.

He braced for the next impact, squeezing his eyes shut against the visions of falling; of hitting the ground; of being crushed beneath several tonnes of stone.

Another crash. Something vital inside the building collapsed and there was a bone-crunching sound of breaking glass and crumbling bricks. The aftershock ran through the ladder like an electrical pulse and he clung to it like a lifeline, not daring to move.

But as the dust began to settle, his heart dropped into his stomach with cold realisation. Kandron was still inside. And the kid. Had they seen it coming? Had they had time to get out? _Please, Maker, say they got out in time_.

He started downward, half climbing, half slipping, clumsy and uncoordinated, his injured arm all but giving up on its attempts to grip the rungs by the time he got the first storey. He fell the rest of the way, his legs collapsing beneath him as he hit the ground, driving all the air out of his lungs. He clawed at the dirt, winded, a blackout threatening to close down his vision.

He couldn’t take in breath. Couldn’t lift his forehead from the ground. White noise filled his ears, along with swirling voices he knew weren’t real but sent pinpricks up the back of his neck nonetheless.

_Get up. Get to the kid._

_Give up. You’re too late._

From the other side of the house he heard the tank begin to reverse once more; the high whine of blaster fire; panicked shouting voices.

“No…” he grunted. He had to get to the kid. Had to get up. He shifted in the mud, tried to pull himself up to his hands and knees but slipped back down again, gasping at the pain that radiated through every muscle.

Nanse was yelling over the comms but he couldn’t make out words, just static and fear.

He had to get up.

He couldn’t get up.

A whimper escaped his throat.

Nanse’s voice in his head: _He was begging for death by the end._

With an immense push of effort he managed to roll over and blinked up at the rain-filled sky, dropping like tiny white lines towards him. The sound of collapsing masonry and crushed glass was muffled by the slowing thud of his heart.

He tried to raise his left arm. To activate his comms one last time. To tell Nanse to get to the ship. To save the kid. To do what he failed to do. But he couldn’t even manage that. His hand twitched against his hip but he lacked the strength to lift it high enough to speak into the comm unit.

Instead, something clattered beneath his fingers—something unfamiliar attached to his belt. A handle. Like a blaster, but too light to be a weapon. His brain turned it over, focusing its last few firing synapses on the puzzle. It was important, somehow. Something he’d forgotten.

His hand clasped around the handle reflexively as the answer hit him like a bolt. _Ama’s hypo syringe._

He still had no idea what was in it but it hardly mattered now. No time for questions. No time for doubt. He jammed the end of the syringe against the unarmoured part of his thigh and pulled the trigger, grunting at the sharp scratch as the needle thudded into his skin.

Nothing happened for a few seconds and he let the hypo drop into the mud beside him.

Then the whole world lit up with a bright white light.

He dragged in a long, tight breath as ice filtered through his veins and clamped around his brain with an iron grip. It was like being thrown into a frozen lake. His muscles tensed as one, and for a moment he couldn’t exhale the air in his lungs.

And then, just as suddenly, it receded, leaving him panting. Everything snapped into focus. His head ached worse than ever but his thoughts were clear. His limbs felt as heavy as lead but the fortitude to force them to do his bidding had increased hundredfold. The pain was still there but separate. Floating. He could feel the damage he’d done to his shoulder as he’d slid down the ladder but it was as if it belonged to someone else.

He sent a silent thank you to the medic, wherever she was. Whatever had been in that shot was enough to keep his broken body moving a little longer and he wasn’t about to waste this chance.

He crawled to his knees, then hauled himself up to his feet, using the wall as leverage as he stumbled towards the side of the house. His legs threatened to fold every other step but he pushed himself to keep walking, acutely aware that he was working on borrowed time.

As he turned the corner, another thunderous crash sounded and the earth shuddered beneath his feet. Shouts. Shots. Splintering wood. A thin, high squeal that cut through his chest.

_Ad’ika._

He started running—a clumsy, staggering movement—but he didn’t need to go far. There was a gaping hole in the side of the house. The whole front of the building had been shattered inward and the destruction had brought down the load bearing walls on the northern side. The kitchen and living room lay open, filled with broken masonry and crushed possessions. And the tank was backing up in the farmyard once more, positioning for another run, its floodlights illuminating the chaos with harsh edges.

Din’s eyes scanned frantically over the shattered mess that used to be the ground floor of the farmhouse, searching for a sign of Kandron and the child, dread gripping him in a hold colder than the hypo syringe. He clambered over the rubble, shoving aside detritus with shaky hands, choking on the lump in his throat. He didn’t know what he’d do if he found a tiny, lifeless green body.

In the distance, the tank began to rev its engine, and the sound made him want to throw up. Made him angrier than he'd ever been. 

And then—so faint, he almost didn’t hear it above the storm of noise—a cough, from the far corner of the kitchen.

“Kandron!” he barked, wading through the wreckage with a single-minded purpose.

“Here…” came the weak reply, and a dusty hand reached up from beneath a fallen cabinet.

A strength he didn’t know he had surged to the surface as Din yanked the cabinet sideways, revealing the farmer—in one piece, but partially trapped beneath what used to be part of his kitchen wall.

Din dropped to his knees at the man’s side, scrabbling through the debris, looking for another, smaller figure.

“Can you move? Where’s the kid?”

Kandron rolled his head from side to side. Blood streaked the side of his face and he cringed in pain as he tried to pull himself free. “Stuck… I don’t…”

“Where is the child?” Din repeated, more urgently this time, on the edge of panic.

The sound of the tank’s engine was rising to a roar once more, like a tsunami of iron, about to crash down on them.

Kandron’s eyes were wet as he looked up at the Mandalorian. “I don’t know…” he whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Din didn’t have time to digest the information. The tank was almost on top of them now, battering its way through the front of the house with dreadful purpose. He hooked his arms around the farmer’s shoulders and hauled backward, ignoring Kandron’s cry of pain as the rubble shifted and creaked, but it was no good. Whatever was pressing down on him was too heavy and Din lost his grip, falling back against a pile of debris with a grunt.

“Come on,” Din wheezed, grappling for a better hold as he risked a glance over his shoulder the approaching tank. “Again!”

But the farmer was pale and deadweight, breathing hard and fast through the pain, “Can’t…” he managed, pushing away Din’s hands. “Go…”

The Mandalorian took a steadying breath of his own and straightened up, casting one last desperate look across the ruins of the house for a glimpse of the child. And then he turned his back on the farmer, squaring up to the oncoming wave of destruction as if he could possibly stand his ground against an armoured tank. 

The tracks made a terrible grinding noise as they rolled forward. He dug his feet into the ruins, positioning his body in front of Kandron, and sent a brief, fleeting prayer up to the sky.

_Let the child be okay. Let Nanse find Cara. Let them get to safety._

The tank loomed above, cresting a mound of rubble and tipping back down the other side, like a giant foot about to stamp…

He heard Kandron choke on an inhale behind him. Every nerve in his body wanted to dive out of the way but he forced himself to stand firm; not to look away.

And then—everything just… stopped. The tank’s tracks were still turning but no longer making contact with the ground. Impossibly, the enormous armoured vehicle was rising slowly upward, its armoured casing creaking and groaning at the unnatural movement.

There was a heavy feeling to the air, as if time was slowing down, too, and Din’s head whipped around to find the source of the familiar power, barely daring to breathe.

There—half way up the stairs, grey with brick dust and looking smaller and more vulnerable than he’d ever seen him—the child, with one arm outstretched, eyes half-closed, lifting a _tank._

Din stood frozen, as dumbfounded as he’d been the first time he’d seen the kid do it—with the mudhorn. The Mandalorian had been resigned to his fate then, too, and the little creature had saved his life with a flick of his wrist. He watched the child frown in concentration as he raised the vehicle even higher, turning it sideways, almost a full ninety degrees, before letting it drop again, helplessly marooned on its side.

The thickness of the air dissipated abruptly and the child toppled backwards, eyes rolling up into his head. And Din was moving before the dust had settled, straight for the kid, ignoring the shouts of the crewmen attempting to scramble out of the hatch of the tank.

The child lay still and peaceful on the stairs and the Mandalorian's hands hovered shakily above the little body for a moment, waiting for a sign of life. He had no idea of the creature’s capabilities but the tank was bigger and heavier than anything he’d moved before. What if it had taken too much? What if–?

But the kid’s tiny chest was rising and falling steadily, his face peaceful and serene. Din scooped him up, pressing the bundle to his chest with one arm while unholstering his blaster with the other, turning in an almost unconscious move to send a stun wave directly into the face of the crewman attempting to jump him from behind.

He stepped over the man’s body and kept firing, hands steady as a rock now, picking off one, two, three more as the crewmen vacated their stranded tank and made a run for the yard, deciding sensibly that they didn’t want to test their odds against a vengeful Mandalorian in such a small, enclosed area.

He let the rest go, returning hurriedly to Kandron who’d managed to edge himself a little further out from under the debris and was leaning against the back wall, gathering his breath. The man’s eyes were wide and unblinking as he looked from the Mandalorian to the unconscious child.

“Is he…?”

“Sleeping,” Din said flatly, passing the kid to the farmer as he resumed his attempts at digging him out.

Kandron’s gaze wandered back to the tank, his mouth hanging open. “What… How did… I don’t…”

Din shook his head, grunting as he hauled on a crumbling portion of the broken wall. It was too heavy for him to lift alone. He grabbed a plank of wood that looked as if it might have once been part of a table and jammed it under the block.

“But he’s so small…” the farmer mused, staring down at the little green face in his arms.

“On three,” the Mandalorian barked, adjusting his grip on the lever. “One, two…”

Kandron’s attention snapped back to the matter at hand when Din put all his weight onto the plank and shoved downward, inching the wall off the farmer’s trapped legs. Sweat dripped into his eyes and his arms shook as he tried to maintain tension on the lever without snapping it. They would only get one chance at this. Beneath him, Kandron did his best to wriggle free, grimacing with the pain, his face draining of colour as his legs began to emerge, trousers ragged and soaked in blood.

Din tried not to look. He could feel his strength waning—whatever had been in that hypo shot was already wearing off and the familiar shakes and waves of dizziness were starting to return—and the lever slipped out of his hands, thunking back down with a sickening crunch.

But instead of the scream of agony he was expecting, the farmer let out a sudden gasp of relief, scooting backward with both legs free.

Din crouched beside him, giving him a cursory medical check-over as Kandron sucked in long draughts of air and absently patted the child’s back as though he was the one who needed soothing. The farmer’s legs were busted and bruised and he’d be lucky if there wasn’t a break, but the blood was mostly from minor cuts and abrasions.

“Looks worse than it is,” was Din’s gruff diagnosis, cocking his head to the side. “You think you can stand?”

Kandron laughed shakily at the Mandalorian and clutched the kid tighter to his chest. “I think... I’m gonna stay here for a minute if that’s okay with you.”

Din was about to argue that they needed to move, that it wasn’t safe, that they had to get to the ship, when a scream cut through the air, punctuated by blaster shots.

Kandron’s face fell. “That was Enra.”

Din shoved the blaster into the man’s hands and staggered back to his feet. “Protect the kid. I’ll get her.”

He followed the sounds of battle to the yard, forcing the last of the adrenaline from Ama’s hypo syringe into his muscles, aware that he was quickly running out of time. 

The combination of the rising dawn and the spreading fire on the barricade made the farmland glow red. The yard was a wreckage of broken outbuildings and scattered equipment. The bodies of crewmen lay where they’d been stunned. The other tank was still half submerged in the pond. The last remaining armoured truck had apparently driven straight into the stables and was buried beneath a collapsed roof. And everywhere the zip and crackle of red blaster fire filled the air.

A bolt bounced off his pauldron the moment he stepped out of the ruined farmhouse but he didn’t stop moving. He sought out his first target and headed right for them, helmet dipped with purpose. He didn’t need a weapon. He _was_ a weapon. Fists and Beskar headbutts were as good as a stun bolt when he let the flow of the fight take over. He took down two more men that way, but there seemed to be no end to them. Another blaster shot knocked him back a step and he lost his rhythm, struggling to keep his balance. They were all around him now—the glare of the fire and the streaking of the lights confusing his sense of direction. He could feel his limbs slowing as the shot drained out of his system and the heavy weight of the poison returned. He whirled as a bolt slammed into his back plate, swinging a wild punch at thin air, but there was no one there.

Through the smoke, he could hear someone sobbing.

_Enra._

He staggered towards the sound but barely made it five paces before a shot hissed past his leg, the burning bolt missing the armour plate and slicing through the meat of his thigh.

He let out a stifled cry of pain and fell to one knee, bracing himself against the muddy ground as he tried to muster the strength to get up again. He had to get up. Get to Enra. To Nanse. To—

“Don’t move!”

Wearily, he raised his head to see a crowd of dark figures silhouetted against the flames, all pointing blasters at him. Another figure was being pushed forward at gunpoint—Enra, her face streaked with ash and tears.

“Hands up!” came another barking order, and as the colonists came closer he recognised the smug, condescending face of Jorran.

He ignored him, looking around for a sign of Nanse. Nanse would have a get-out. She always did. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t how it ended.

“Put. Your hands. Up.”

Enra gasped as the crewman holding her shoved his blaster against the side of her head. She looked to the Mandalorian with a terrible helplessness and he slowly raised his palms in submission.

Nanse wasn’t coming. Maybe she was dead. Maybe she’d run. There was no one else. Just him. And he couldn’t even stand.

The world was spinning now, hazing in and out of focus, every pulse of his heart threaded through with a sharp, overwhelming pain.

It was over.

He let his head hang, unable to bear the look on Enra’s face any longer.

He wished the poison would just get it over with and claim him. He could feel it closing in, its sharp fingers clenching around the base of his brain.

 _Not long now…_ it whispered. And for the first time he welcomed it. Let it come. Let it be over. He was so very tired…

But as his eyes slid shut a scratch of static cut through the haze in his head.

“…here…” a voice said, breathless and faint.

He looked up to see Enra was staring at her own comm, too. He wasn't hearing things, then. 

“…made it… connected…” the voice said again.

He and Enra recognised it at the same time and her stare met his visor for a second before they both looked up to the tower on the ridge. It was too far to see a figure but he thought he saw a tiny white light there.

_Carro!_

She must have run the whole way. _Attagirl._

And then, a voice he knew even better, steady and cool—sounding loud and clear through the unit in his helmet, through Enra’s comm, through the radios clipped to the crewmen’s belts, projected out of the speakers atop the tanks, amplified a hundredfold until it filled the air for miles around—Nanse’s voice:

“Attention, citizens of Cappa-Zero-Nine. This is a call for solidarity from the Namorri ranch. A call for help. A call to revolution. To any smallholders, outliers and independent settlements across Cappa-Zero-Nine. To any colony residents who have been forcefully uprooted from their homes. You have been sold a lie. You have been blackmailed into servitude. The colony is not interested in your farms, or your citizenship, or even its own produce. It is mining the core of this planet for ore to sell to warmongers and capitalists, just as it has done on countless planets and moons before. Those who speak against the system are put to work underground, forgotten, erased. When the system needs more workers, it will come for you. And when it is done it will leave this place an empty husk; leave you indebted and reliant on the system that destroyed you. You do not have to accept this. You can stop it. You can stop it right now. The Namorris are under attack. Stand with them and demand better. You deserve better. You deserve your land back. _Demand it_.”

Half way through the speech, Din had caught sight of a familiar figure standing atop the barricade, surrounded by the glow of the fire. Glowing herself, it seemed. A pale blue light that radiated into the smoke above. Her voice slipped through the cracks in his mind—the only thing holding him upright, entranced by her words. She could have ordered him to do anything and he would have obeyed.

The colonist holding Enra let go of her, his arms dropping to his sides, weapon dropping to the mud, his mouth agape. The others were backing away too, turning to stare at the figure on the barricade, ignoring Jorran’s enraged screams for back up.

And Din imagined the transmission flowing through the sky, over the mountains, flashing like lightning into every single transmitter and speaker across the planet. Nanse’s light spreading over the land like the sunrise.

This was a much better ending, he thought, even as silence fell and the glow faded and the blackness took over. The pain, rushing in to consume him.

He could let go now. He could let go. 

And when he hit the ground, he didn't feel a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the end! I promise! But you asked for whump and, well, you got it... 
> 
> Love to know what you think. 
> 
> I have a little follow-up chapter half-planned out so will be working on getting that uploaded soon. And remember, this is just one arc in what I hope will be an even bigger story so hang onto your whump pants, guys. There's more comin'.


	19. The Dreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din dreams. And wakes. And dreams. And wakes. And dreams some more...

_He had died before. And come back to life—hollowed out and reborn in Beskar._

_He remembered it only vaguely, as though through a mist. An emptiness that was tangible. Painful. He learned to wear a mask long before they gave him one._

_It was safer that way. To remain untouchable. To contain himself within a shell. To hide._

_He had died before and so he did not fear death._

_But that did not mean that he was not afraid._

* * *

He woke and did not wake, floating in the black.

Hands lifting him. Pulling at his armour. Cold fingers on bare skin. Pain streaking through him with every touch.

He’d had the same nightmare for decades, ever since he’d taken the creed. The one fear shared by every Mandalorian. The trade-off for the invincibility of armour. _Dar’manda._ An unbecoming. The fact that an enemy could strip away your identity in an instant, simply by removing your helmet.

He dreamt of suffocating; something binding his chest tight; pinning him down; ripping off his armour like he was a carcass to be skinned. In the paralysis of sleep he could never stop it from happening, no matter how much he struggled. And the nightmare always ended the same way—hands gripping hold of his helmet and yanking upward, jolting him awake with a hoarse cry.

But this time it was real.

Someone was holding him down. Someone else was tugging at his chest plate. Fingers gripped his arms and legs tight, bruising the poisoned flesh. He couldn’t open his eyes but he knew this wasn’t a dream. It hurt too much to be imaginary. There were too many of them, too strong—or he was too weak—and they were going to strip him for parts.

A primal growl escaped his throat as he fought against his unseen attackers, bucking and twisting in their grip, rolling sideways until he found himself falling with a stomach dropping lurch. He slammed into a hard surface, the thud running through him with a resounding jolt. There was blood in his mouth. A ringing in his ears. He tried to open his eyes but even behind his eyelids the light was too bright. He could hear distant shouting but his brain couldn’t seem to assimilate the sounds into words.

His helmet was still on but he’d lost his pauldrons, his bracers, his backplate. There was a wire in his arm, stinging the crook of his elbow like a barb.

The memory of a darkened medical room rushed in to taunt him. Visions of the child, hooked up to a machine…

_He had to get him back. Had to make it right._

He yanked the wire out and tossed it aside.

More shouting, more hands, trying to hold him still. He didn’t have the strength to stop them but he wasn’t about to give up. Carro’s words: _Your kid says you never give up_.

He kept struggling, breathless now, his voice ragged and desperate. “Where is he? _Where is he_?”

All the breath was pressed out of his chest as someone leaned over him.

Hands on his helmet, gripping tight.

He let out a strangled cry of protest but he was slipping into the darkness once more. The nightmare coming true.

But then a sensation he hadn’t felt in a long, long time: a forehead, pressing against his visor. A soft voice in his ear. A voice he knew but couldn’t place. A voice he trusted.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. Your child is safe. Lie still. We’re trying to help you.”

The hands left his helmet but the forehead remained for a moment, a calming pressure that washed away everything else—the hurt and the terror and panic—and then it lifted too, leaving him untethered once more, floating through the space between waking and sleep, unable to even remember his own name. 

* * *

He drifted out of unconsciousness a handful of times after that, never for very long, and never gathering much more than the fact that everything hurt and his limbs seemed to weigh a hundred tonnes and sometimes there was light and sometimes there was dark but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t speak.

There were voices, sometimes. Mostly whispering, out of earshot. Voices he knew and voices he didn’t, not that he could put a name to any of them.

A few times he remembered enough to try to complete his mission. They were under attack. Enra, he had to help Enra. And Kandron, buried under the rubble. And the kid—always the kid. Nanse needed him to do something but he didn’t know what.

A hand, resting over his. A thumb, brushing across his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth, until his breathing quietened.

“It’s okay, Mando. Stand down. It’s okay.”

He took it as an order and let the dark swallow him up.

* * *

_He dreamt of flying. Falling._

_He dreamt of lights, blinding, blinking, glowing so hot they burst into flame._

_He dreamt of his parents reaching out for him. But when he looked up they had no faces—just seamless black visors where they ought to be. He put a hand to his own face but there was nothing there, either._

_He dreamt of the child, buried in rubble. He dug until his fingers bled but every time he caught sight of a little green hand it only seemed to sink deeper._

_He dreamt of Nanse, looking down the barrel of his Amban rifle. Aiming at him. Squeezing the trigger. He felt the impact in his shoulder, radiating needles of pain down his arm, into his chest. Watched himself turn into particles while she looked on, smiling…_

* * *

He woke with a sharp inhale, his hand drifting to his helmet automatically.

His clumsy fingers jarred against Beskar and a quiet sigh came from his left.

“Still there, buddy...” Nanse’s voice, close by.

He didn’t need to guess where he was. He recognised the air, the smell, the echo of the Crest’s cargo hold. But instead of the reassuring thrum of the engines, the deep compression of space against the hull, the ship lay still and cold. Planetside, then. But he wasn’t nearly awake enough to remember the name of the one he might be on.

He let out a strained breath and tried to coordinate the opening of his eyes. He managed one at a time, alternating until they eventually lined up and his vision cleared a little. He let his head roll to the side, far too heavy to lift, and found the engineer inspecting a drip line hooked up to his left arm.

“Got a few more of these to go until all the poison’s flushed out,” she said, squeezing a bag of clear fluid hanging on a rack behind him.

He was lying on a cot in the middle of the hold, armourless but for his helmet, his right shoulder and torso patched and bandaged, the rest of him covered with a stack of blankets that made it difficult to move his legs. What skin he could see was still splintered with tiny white veins, purple with bruising beneath, but far less prominent than before. In some places the traces of the poison’s infection had almost faded completely. He flexed his left hand and felt the soreness of where the needle embedded in his arm.

“Ama,” Nanse explained, interpreting the confused tilt of his helmet. “She heard my message. Lot of people did, apparently,” she added with a distant smile.

His brain made a slow attempt to process the layers of memories sliding into place. It was hard to know what he’d dreamt and what had really happened.

_Nanse standing atop the barricade. On fire. No, not on fire. Glowing, somehow. Her voice amplified a hundredfold. Talking of revolution..._

He blinked and it must have lasted longer than he meant it to because when he opened his eyes again she was the other side of him, sitting against a crate, tinkering with something metal. A moment of concentrated focus revealed a familiar stack of armour beside her and one of his bracers in her lap.

He croaked out a groan, trying to push words out of his dry throat, and her eyes lifted momentarily before returning to her work.

“Don't worry. The helmet stayed on. Kid’s safe. Kandron and the girls, too,” she said, as if by rote, glancing back up at him with a gentle smirk. “You ask the same questions every time you come round.”

 _How long had he been out?_ He couldn’t manage a sentence with that many words in it so swallowed carefully and opted for a single one instead: “Where…?”

She gestured to the open bay door but he wasn’t able to twist around enough to look. “The ranch,” she clarified. 

A flush of cold panic ran through him as memories of the siege came slamming back. _The farmhouse in ruins. Enra at gunpoint. Blasterfire and explosions..._

He struggled to lift his head, lift an arm to get her attention, to move any lead-weight part of him more than an inch. “Gotta… go…”

Nanse sighed again and set the bracer down, fixing him with a look that made him wonder just how long she’d been sitting there answering the same questions. “We’re safe for now. Trust me.”

He shook his head. He did trust her. Of course he did. But the colonists hadn’t been firing stun bolts—they’d been sent to kill them all. Every blink brought a flash of adrenaline-filled vision. _Sliding off the roof. Kandron covered in blood. The child, lifting a tank..._

“No…” He managed to jam an elbow underneath him and paused to suck in a series of gasping breaths, the black clouds on the edge of his vision threatening to close in once more. They had to leave. He couldn’t understand why she hadn’t started the flight sequence. He’d shown her how. He’d made her promise…

He jolted as her cool palm rested on his forearm. She’d somehow crossed the hold without him noticing and was sitting right beside him.

“We’re safe,” she repeated, firmer now. “You can see for yourself once you’ve finished your medicine.”

He followed the trail of the tubing up to the fluid bag hanging on a rack above his head. _A few more to go…_ she’d said. They didn’t have time for this.

His hand moved to grab the drip line, to pull it out again, but she stopped him—her grip on his wrist containing more strength than he’d expected. Or perhaps it was that he simply lacked any strength at all.

She seemed wholly unsurprised at his reaction, and as he noticed the deep blue bruising around the puncture site on his arm, he wondered how many times he’d tried to do this, too.

“Tell you what,” she said, setting his hand down on his stomach with a gentle pat. “If you can sit up on your own, we’ll go right now.”

His eyes narrowed at her amused, condescending tone but she was immune to the blank face of his visor.

A low grunt escaped his throat as he tried to prove her wrong, the muscles in his neck bunching into cords as he forced his head up, a shudder running through his arms as he attempted to lever himself forward…

And then the world was sliding sideways and the void slapped him in the face with a handful of ice and he was flat on his back once more, chest heaving, breathless and dizzy.

“Mmm hmm,” was Nanse’s deadpan response. “Maybe next time, huh?”

He didn’t even have the energy to growl back at her. His eyes were falling closed again and he could do nothing to stop them.

He felt her give his hand another little pat, felt her weight lift off the cot, and then she was gone—the faraway sounds of tinkering tools lulling him back beneath the waves of exhaustion.

* * *

_He dreamt of burning alive in the Navarro cantina. The heat melting his armour, peeling away his skin._

_He dreamt of needles. Of being bled dry by the Client’s nervy doctor. Lying helpless beneath a bank of bleeping medical instruments._

_He dreamt of flying. Crashing. A nosedive into atmosphere that would tear the ship apart. The Crest’s cockpit full of smoke. Blinding him. Choking him…_

* * *

He woke coughing. Instinctively put a hand to his helmet.

_Still there._

He sighed, rolled his head around to look for Nanse but found a glowing red eye there instead.

A spider droid sat inches away from his face, peering at him, its front legs tapping against one another like it was wringing its hands.

He flinched away with a cry of shock, sending a flare of pain through his shoulder, his good arm flailing behind him for something to hold onto—something to fight with.

Someone grasped his hand and held it still, leaning over him with a low laugh to scoop up the droid.

His head spun as he followed the movement, snatching back his hand as the metal spider scuttled up a green-robed arm.

Ama stood over him with a benign look while he tried and failed to pull himself up. He scanned wildly around the Crest for Nanse but he was alone with the Carosite. And the droid, perched attentively on her shoulder.

“Your babysitter friend removed the transmitter connecting it to the colony,” the medic said, idly stroking one of the droid’s angular legs. “It’s an independent entity now. As am I.”

She bowed her head slightly, a trace of uncertainty on her face as she watched the Mandalorian for his reaction. He remained frozen, breathing as hard as if he’d been running, watching her and her pet droid right back.

When it became clear he wasn’t going to speak, she turned away, busying herself for a moment at a makeshift medical station in the corner, before returning with something wrapped in a scrap of fabric.

He forced himself not to flinch again as she bent down to place the offering ceremoniously on the bed beside him.

“This belongs to you,” she said quietly.

He eyed the bundle suspiciously before flicking back the fabric to reveal a flash of Beskar—his missing wrist bracer. The collateral he’d left with her in exchange for the antidote.

He frowned in confusion. “I didn’t get the credits,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“My payment is my freedom,” she nodded curtly. “And a warrior needs his armour.”

He rested a hand on the bracer, its familiar curve fitting into his palm with a reassuring coolness. He had to swallow hard before he could speak again. He still didn't understand but he was grateful to be put back together again. 

“Thank you.”

She nodded again, easing the awkwardness by settling into her doctor’s persona once more and making a methodical check of her handiwork.

He had no idea how far he was along in his treatment but the current fluid bag was almost empty and she swapped it out for a fresh one before examining the antidote’s effects on his recovery. The marks on his skin were continuing to fade everywhere except his injured shoulder which remained vivid and angry, hot to the touch and still painful enough to elicit a tight moan from between his gritted teeth when she manipulated the joint.

“This one will take a little longer to heal,” she explained, “And some residual symptoms may linger for a while. Your brain has suffered severe chemical interference. Hallucinations. Visual disturbances. Nightmares…” she added with a sympathetic, knowing look. “Your sleep has not been exactly restful, dear. But it will ease, in time.”

He wrapped his good arm around his aching shoulder, feeling particularly vulnerable—half-dressed, without his armour, and with that insectile droid still watching him all the while. The Carosite moved on to his thigh where the blaster shot wound was tightly bound with bandages, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. This time he kept his wince of pain silent. He’d had worse. Was recovering from worse. But the medic seemed to sense his discomfort anyway, frowning down at the way the muscle tensed under her hands. She propped a few blankets beneath his calf and the relief was instant. He let out a deep exhale and she smiled in satisfaction.

“There. We’ll have you back in one piece soon. If you can be patient just a little longer.”

He huffed in response. Patience was not one of his virtues at the best of times. But then a lance of guilt hit him as he remembered why he’d been in such a hurry to get out of here.

“The child,” he blurted. “Is he–”

“I have performed a thorough check of everyone involved,” Ama said calmly. “The child slept almost as long as you did but seems to show no ill effects of the incident's events. He is a particularly healthy specimen,” she grinned affectionately but he couldn’t help grimacing at the word ‘specimen’. It reminded him too much of the Client. Of Gideon. The way they called the kid an ‘asset’.

But Ama was oblivious to his thoughts, pottering around the hold as if she owned the place, straightening up her equipment and chattering away just as she’d done back at her shop. “The farmer suffered quite a nasty break but luckily I’d just received a shipment of bacta and he’s already up and limping about. And his girls got away with nothing more than a few scrapes. They’re good people. I can see why you wanted to help them.” She paused thoughtfully and gave a slight shake of her head. “Many wouldn’t have.”

The Carosite turned to look back at him, the spider droid mirroring her movements as though it were attached by puppet strings. She had that nervous edge again, choosing her next words carefully.

“When you first came to me… I wanted to help. I really did. But Andales. The colony. They controlled everything. Watched everything…” She patted the droid absently and it blinked its aperture at him.

“But after what your friend did. What _you_ did,” she said, taking a few steps closer, gesturing out the bay doors to something he couldn’t see, then down at his bandaged leg, his shoulder, the drip. “Well. I just hope this goes some way to making up for it.”

He nodded slowly, still not entirely at ease with her presence—or that of the droid—or even quite fully cognisant of what it was Nanse had managed to do to stop the colonist attack. But his head was too heavy to lift, his voice too faint to force out of his throat, and he couldn’t do much more than lie there until she was finished talking. Which, apparently, she was not.

“Besides,” she said, suddenly her bright self once more, “I have always been interested in the study of poisons. And Galkah is a particularly rare example. I have been keen to research it properly...”

She reached out a clawed hand and stopped just short of touching his right arm where the white splintered veins were most prominent, a musing look on her face.

“You know, before it was harnessed as a poison, Galkah was used as a source of spiritual enlightenment,” she told him. “Ancient religions revered it. Their monks would take it in tiny doses, seeking understanding of the universe and the forces within it. The light. The dark…”

_The lights._

The memory of the poison’s horrors was mostly a blur at the back of his exhausted brain but he remembered the lights. The kaleidoscope of colours. The pinprick stars, freewheeling above. The glowing of Nanse and the child. The warmth of it. The feeling of... knowing... something he couldn't quite articulate.

“I saw…” he began, before trailing off with a short shake of his head. He’d seen nothing. Nonsense. Hallucinations. His brain had been shutting down while he tripped on a psychotropic toxin. It hadn’t been some spiritual enlightenment. It had been trying to kill him.

But the medic was waiting inquisitively for him to finish his sentence.

“It gave me a… sensitivity to light,” he said flatly.

She nodded enthusiastically, eager to hear more about his experiences for her ‘research’, leaning forward so she was looming over him once more.

He cleared his throat, awkward at the sudden proximity, hoping she might back off if he gave her the information she was after. “And I, uh… I kept losing time. Would forget where I was. Get… confused. Hear things.”

He was sweating just thinking about it. The relentlessness. The helplessness. The knowledge that it was only going to get worse. Until it killed him. 

“It was like torture,” he said in a rasp. 

“Well, the Jedi would only take microscopic amounts,” she said, with a thoughtful tilt of her head, “What you were given would have killed you in a matter of hours if I hadn’t–”

His head snapped up. “The Jedi?”

It was her turn to flinch and she took a cautious step back at the intensity of his stare. “A religious order. Of sorts. I don’t believe they worshiped a god as such, more of a… power. But that was a long time ago…”

“You know about the Jedi?” he whispered urgently, ignoring the complaints of his leg and shoulder as he tried to manoeuvre himself up to sitting. “I need… I need to know.”

She darted forward as his shuddering arms gave out and he fell back against the cot with a hiss of pain.

“Easy now…” she soothed, helping him readjust to a position that didn’t cause him to seethe each breath in and out.

He grasped hold of her wrist as she fussed over his blankets. “Tell me. Please.”

She looked at him as if he were still raving under the influence of the poison. “That’s all I know,” she shrugged. “It’s just a myth, Mando. Just a story.”

He let go of her and sank into the pillow, the brief exertion and the weight of his disappointment deepening his exhaustion. For a moment the only sound was the harsh scrape of his breathing as he waited for his heart rate to slow, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat and it hurt. 

The medic was watching him closely, curiously.

“What did you see?” she asked softly. “The light—what was it like?”

He stared up at the ceiling of the hold and let the water in his eyes blur his vision, trying to conjure the image of the glow. The _feel_ of it.

“I saw… auras,” he said, just as quiet. “It was– ” He hauled in a stuttered breath. “It was... beautiful.” 

In a twisted sort of way, he almost missed it. 

A gentle smile crossed the Carosite’s lips. “Then you have seen something very rare. Not many people who come into contact with Galkah survive it. Fewer still have seen what you have seen. For all your suffering… I am almost jealous,” she added, with a short laugh.

He snorted air out of his vocoder and she straightened up once more, adjusting her robes and folding her hands neatly in front of her.

“Now, I will leave you to rest. I ought to check on Kandron, too. Are you comfortable? Do you need any pain relief?” 

He shook his head as much as his tired muscles would allow. Although there was a general underlying hurt emanating throughout his body, he suspected there must be some kind of sedative or analgesic in the drip that was muting everything somehow. It was becoming harder and harder to fight the pull of gravity, anchoring him into the bed, beckoning for sleep.

And he was tired of fighting it.

He vaguely registered the skittering noise of the droid crossing the hold and caught the shadow of the medic’s figure passing in front of the open door before his eyes closed and became too heavy to open again.

* * *

_He dreamt of sparking, molten metal. A hammer, pounding with a jarring strike. The armourer, pressing a burning sigil into his bare flesh._

_He dreamt of floating, being lifted into the air by an invisible force—the child holding him in its powers, one arm outstretched, eyes half closed—and for a moment he was flying._

_He dreamt of a blue light, spreading over the landscape, consuming everything until he was blind with it, filled up with it, placid as ice, and everything became calm and still._

* * *

He woke to a whispered, one-sided conversation. His head was already turned to the side and all it took was a few blinks to open his eyes and watch without being noticed—Nanse and the child, sitting together on the floor of the hold, a few feet away from his cot.

The engineer was murmuring reassurances to the kid. About him. About how he was getting better. How he would wake up soon. How they had to be gentle and patient. How sometimes he got confused and didn’t know where he was. Sometimes he got angry. But there was no need to be scared. it was okay. He was okay. It would all be okay. 

The child babbled the occasional interjection but mostly just watched Nanse’s face with wide eyes and twitching ears. She was good with him. Gave him her full attention, didn’t baby-talk, just kept her sentences simple and short, her tone soft and calm.

The kid was clutching something tightly in his arms and Din felt an ache deep in his chest when he saw what it was: the same metal canister the boy had taken a shine to before, only now it had a T shape carved into it—the same design as his own visor.

An involuntary ‘huh’ escaped his vocoder and both the child and Nanse looked round at him.

“Gently now–” Nanse began, but the child was already climbing onto the cot with a squeal and launching himself into the open arc of Din’s outstretched arms.

He didn’t care about the little feet pressing against his bruised arm, or the strain of his shoulder as the boy unceremoniously flumped down onto his sternum. He couldn’t help but laugh at the very clear lecture the kid proceeded to deliver in a series of meeps and vowels, and caught the boy’s waving hands in his own to still them for a moment.

“I know. I’m sorry,” he said, smiling beneath his helmet, “I was worried about you too. But it’s okay, womp rat.”

The boy’s grumpy expression softened a little and he patted the bandage on Din’s shoulder with an almost comical gentleness.

“He wanted to help,” Nanse said, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them as she watched the father and son with a faint smile. “When Ama was treating you. Kept trying to climb up onto the bed. We had to take him out until she was done.”

A thread of alarm ran through him as he imagined what the kid had been attempting to do—what would have happened if they’d seen him use his powers. He glanced back at Nanse to check for signs that she had noticed anything of the sort but her face was carefully implacable.

He looked back at the kid with a warning tilt of his helmet. They would have to talk about the powers thing—about appropriate use and the need for secrecy. But right now he was just pleased to feel the weight of the tiny creature on his chest; to brush his thumbs over the backs of its soft little hands; to hear the familiar little coos and grunts that had become the background noise of his life over the past year. He took in a long breath of contentment and let it out again.

“He’s been eating _all_ the lizards,” Nanse commented with a wry nod at the boy. “Kandron says he’s the most efficient pest control he’s ever had.”

“Earning your keep, huh?” Din poked the kid's round little belly and elicited a squeak.

Nanse feigned a serious look at the boy. “And getting into trouble with Carro..." 

Din’s gaze drifted towards the bay door, tantalisingly close but still not able to see what had become of the ranch.

“How...?” he murmured. “ _How_ are we still here? What happened?”

Nanse looked self-conscious all of a sudden, squeezing her arms around her knees to make herself seem even smaller. “People heard the message. Came from all over. Homesteaders. Other ranchers. There are more on their way, arriving every day. There have been strikes in the colony, too. An appeal to the authorities, whoever the hell they are. I think someone’s even contacted the New Republic to talk about trade laws…”

She looked almost as surprised as he was to hear it out loud and she struggled to meet his eye line.

“That night… After they heard the message, after you collapsed, most of them just dropped their weapons and left. Enra and I saw off the rest.” She frowned at one particular memory. "And _Jorran_ ," she spat. “We sent him back to Andales with a few extra bruises...”

He gave a huff of approval at that, remembering the self-satisfied look on the administrator's face when he'd had the Mandalorian on his knees.

Nanse shrugged into herself, a look of quiet wonder on her face. “And then… Kandron’s neighbours turned up. And Ama. They made a picket line around the ranch. They got Kandron and the kid out. Brought you here. Rebuilt the barricade. Started clearing up the rubble…”

He could hear the tightness of her voice now and wondered how long it had been since anyone had shown her any real kindness. How long since anyone had helped her for no other reason but that she needed help. The way she talked about it was like she was in a dream.

It made him think of the covert. The way they'd shown up for him on Navarro, just as he thought it was all over. They'd fought for him and the child. They'd died for him. A pile of empty helmets in the tunnels...

His face was suddenly wet beneath his helmet, hot tears sliding down his temples. His hands tightened reflexively around the kid, gentle but firm. He never wanted to let him go again. 

Nanse's eyes finally flickered up to his visor and she gave a shaky smile. “We made a difference, like you said. _We_ did this.”

He held her gaze with a tiny shake of his head. “No. _You_ did this.”

* * *

_The next time he closed his eyes he dreamt of... nothing—his head empty, his pain fading, his body sinking into the bed like water._

_He simply slept. For the first time in a long while. Just quiet, and rest, and a warm glowing light in the centre of his chest._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Esoteric dream sequences are always fun, huh? And some hurt/comfort post-whump fluff for good measure. 
> 
> Now, this isn't really the end either, although I may take a little break to map out the next arc... Think of it as a brief resting point. 
> 
> I think I'm gonna stick with one long fic for now to prevent too much confusion but this definitely isn't the last you'll see of Nanse and whatever as-yet-untold secrets she's got goin' on, I promise. 
> 
> But thanks for sticking with me this far (~80,000 words wtaf) and for all the dopamine hits of kudos and comments. Truly truly truly appreciate each one. Thank you. x


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